Scrum doesn't have to suck
Even though on paper they were all doing some form of scrum, in practice, my experience varied wildly from one team to another. It’s almost as if the term has become meaningless.
This isn’t a rant against scrum and agile but rather a semi-structured, subjective review of what I think works well and what doesn’t.
A sprint should be as long or as short as needed. Two weeks is a good rule of thumb for most teams, but adjust the sprint length as your team gains experience.
The most common mistake is when the daily standup becomes a time for the team to read aloud what’s already in the ticketing system (Jira, Asana, Monday…). Those tools exist so anyone on the team can check the status of tickets anytime.
The standup should be a time to highlight new risks, uncertainties, dependencies, or anything unexpected that’s hard to capture in a ticket. As the team mindlessly reads through Jira cards one by one, no one brings up that they are blocked by another team.
Some folks feel the need to prove they worked on something yesterday, while others just enjoy talking. Keep this ritual short, actionable, and unobtrusive.
