30 Years of Scrum
As Scrum turns 30, it's a good time to reflect not only on what it brought us but also on what it demands of us.
In a recent conversation between Ken Schwaber and Dave West, the topic turned to a word that hit us hard: honesty.
Ken pointed out that one of Scrum’s most powerful contributions is the honesty it invites—by making work visible, removing layers of illusion, and confronting us with what’s real. Scrum replaced the theater of obfuscated reporting with empirical process control. It shifted focus from plans and projections to value delivery, short feedback loops, and navigating complexity through learning.
This framing—transparency as honesty—feels personal. And much more difficult.
It’s also what we believe must come next in the evolution of organizations.
Beyond the Three Impediments
Ken Schwaber once named three great impediments to agility:
The tyranny of waterfall
The illusion of control
The belief in magic
Through our work, we’ve come to see a fourth:
the vicious cycle of short-term reorganizations.
Too many organizations chase quick fixes. They shuffle reporting lines, redraw boxes, and label it “transformation.” But without a clear design strategy, these changes only delay the next wave of disruption—and often erode the organization’s ability to learn.
If we want to bring the spirit of Scrum to the whole system, we must confront this pattern with the same courage Scrum demands of teams.
Organizational Honesty: The Next Frontier
As practitioners in organizational design, we’ve seen how often organizations embrace Scrum in teams but resist its deeper implications in leadership, structure, and strategy.
Scrum helps teams learn and adapt. But what about the system those teams live in?
What if we applied transparency, inspection, and adaptation not just at the product level but at the organizational level?
This question has guided much of our recent work—and it’s the foundation of a story we’re telling in our upcoming book.
Applying Empirical Thinking at the Org Level
Just as Scrum enables teams to navigate complex work empirically, we believe organizations can evolve more intelligently by applying the same principles:
Transparency about how the organization really works (not how it’s drawn on slides)
Inspection of whether structure supports strategy
Adaptation of design to unlock learning, collaboration, and performance
This is the deeper shift we’re working toward: honesty as a capability not just for teams, but for the organization as a whole. The Org Topologies MADE method brings empirical process control to the organizational level:
A Novel Exploration: 10X ORG
Org Topologies is soon to release their business novel, in which the leadership team of a fictional company begins to realize that their problems—sluggish innovation, failed AI pilots, disengaged teams—are not technical. They’re systemic and structural.
At the heart of the story is a deceptively simple message from the CEO:
“When do you think we can turn down new hires by turning up AI?”
It’s a catalyst that sends the head of HR, Hanna, on a journey of discovery—one that reveals what has silently blocked change for years: a misfit between strategy and organizational design.
A Holiday Gift: Read the First 2 Chapters of 10X ORG
If you're curious about how these ideas play out in practice—and how an executive team might come to this realization—we invite you to read the first two chapters of our book, 10X ORG.
Dave West, the CEO of Scrum.org, has given this book his powerful endorsement:
"Org Topologies provides a practical approach to evaluating and improving your organization. In this book, Alexey and Roland describe not only a robust strategy for organizational redesign but also introduce a simple way to get started, which is often the hardest step. You might be surprised how disconnected your organization’s structure is from what you are trying to achieve with it. This book offers a blueprint for success.”
10X ORG Is not a textbook. It’s a story about confronting hard truths, surfacing invisible constraints, and designing organizations that truly support their people and their purpose.
🎁 [Download the 60-page preview here]
We hope it resonates. And we’d love to hear what you think.