Don’t Blindly Follow

Don't blindly adopt anything. Circular Illustration of Scrum Process

Scrum is comprised of a self-organizing team that is given a challenge, and to meet that challenge, works in short, time-boxed iterations during which they meet daily to quickly synchronize their efforts.

At the start of each iteration, they meet to plan what they will accomplish. At the end, they demonstrate what has been accomplished and reflect on how well they worked together to achieve it.

That's it. Anything else—release planning, burndowns, and so on, is optional. Stick to the above and find the local optimizations that fit your environment. No expert knows more about your company than you do.


The Definitive Guide to the What and When of Product Owner Responsibilities

The Definitive Guide to the What and When of Product Owner Responsibilities

Sign up to get your free download

Mike Cohn

About the Author

Mike Cohn specializes in helping companies adopt and improve their use of agile processes and techniques to build extremely high-performance teams. He is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile as well as the Better User Stories video course. Mike is a founding member of the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance and can be reached at hello@mountaingoatsoftware.com. If you want to succeed with agile, you can also have Mike email you a short tip each week.