Scrum has its roots in Japanese manufacturing. It takes its foundations broadly from the Toyota Product Development System, and in particular, from the Toyota Production System. Scrum adoption has grown rapidly since its inception in 1993 and its introduction to the public in 1995. Yet, it is still new to many organizations. For those new to Scrum, it may be a mystery to identify where to start. For organizations already using Scrum, it can be a challenge to find out where to focus improvement. Over the time that we, the book’s authors, have been using Scrum (and we have been using Scrum since its inception), we have come to understand the networks of patterns that make it work: how Scrum works, why it works, and how best to apply it in daily practice.
We have several person-centuries of combined experience with Scrum. This book gathers that collective experience into proven solutions called patterns that we have distilled from observing many Scrum Teams—both their successes and failures. These solutions will help you implement and improve your use of Scrum, whether you are a beginner or an experienced practitioner. Though pragmatic and grounded in experience, this book also stands on Scrum’s deepest foundations and reflects contributions from many early shapers of Scrum, including its inventor. As a rationalized oracle, this book hopes to help dispel many of the widespread myths about Scrum and its practices.
The solutions in this book not only draw on prior art and publication but also tap into the vast experience of a broad international community of product developers. The patterns come from our work with Scrum Teams worldwide, from our home bases in Japan, the Nordics, the U.K., Portugal, Canada, U.S., Netherlands, and Australia—and from our experiences on every continent except Antarctica. We have observed these patterns in many contexts, from organizations with thousands of staff members to small teams of three people; and in dozens of industries: telecommunications, banking, education, machine automation, and countless others. Each pattern has been through a process of detailed review by up to a dozen people, each of whom applied their collective dirty-hands experience with Scrum to relentlessly refine each one. Dozens of candidate patterns didn’t make it to the book, as they rose only to the level of anecdotal experience, or lacked empirical validation, or were just precursors to greater patterns. We believe that the patterns in this book have something special. The pattern community calls it “the Quality without a name,” or sometimes just “the Quality,” a kind of Wholeness that aspires to day-to-day excellence.
The Scrum Guide defines Scrum as “a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.”[2] This definition describes both Scrum’s assumptions and the perspectives we develop from using it. One way to recognize a complex problem is to recognize it as one that you don’t fully understand until seeing its solution, and that you can’t derive the solution from first principles ahead of time. Solving the problem begs exploration and feedback. The problem’s dynamic element demands adaptive solutions that change over time and with our engagement. Our current solution meets our current needs—but these will change. An example of this kind of problem is new product development: it may be easy to see why the product was a success after it is successful, but to be certain beforehand is impossible.
Speaking of The Scrum Guide, we view it just as the rulebook for Scrum. It’s important to understand the rules, and it’s even useful to follow them most of the time. But reading the rulebook of chess won’t make you a great chess player. After learning the rules, the player then learns about common strategies for the game; the player may also learn basic techniques at this level. Next is learning how to combine strategies you learn from others while maybe adding some of your own. Ultimately, one can transcend any formalism and proceed from the cues one receives from one’s center, from one’s instinct. This book is for those who want to understand the rules more clearly; for those who want to grow by combining ideas and by evolving the fundamental structure of the system, rather than by merely refining technique. Jeff Sutherland points this out:
In recent years the Scrum Patterns Group has evolved a comprehensive set of patterns for Scrum that allow teams to try proven approaches that have worked in many companies. While The Scrum Guide describes the basic rules of Scrum, the patterns amplify the guide by showing teams how to solve problems in a specific context.
So The Scrum Guide is the rulebook, and the patterns look beyond the rules. These patterns shape the on-the-job-training of making Scrum work for you on your way up the ladder of ongoing improvement. Some day, long from now, you may even outgrow these patterns as you evolve them and define your own. There are no points for doing Scrum, and these patterns are the gate through which a highly driven team passes on the road to the top echelons of performance. Patterns do their job when they help people honestly and critically search within themselves on their path to excellence. One ignores the patterns at one’s peril, but only an unthinking organization follows them slavishly.