Allen Holub published an interesting post:
“Should we just give up on the Scrum Guide? Nobody’s read it.
To me, the Scrum Guide is the definitive definition of Scrum. However, I’ve found (by asking many people, sometimes very large groups at conferences) that most Scrum practitioners have not only never read the Guide, they’ve never even *heard* of it. Put another way, Scrum as practiced has little or nothing to do with the Guide. So, given that, is the Guide even relevant? I’m just as guilty as most in quoting chapter and verse when somebody says something ridiculous about Scrum, but more often than not, the thing they’re touting (story points and velocity, for example, or “sprint commitments”) is considered central to Scrum by the vast majority of practitioners, even if it’s either not in or is in direct opposition to something the Guide says. Given that, do you think that it’s worth referring back to the Guide, or should we just define Scrum as what people actually do and get off our high horses?”(1)
I deeply agree with Allen Holub. I am, as personal experience, also amazed by this. Each time when there is a discussion regarding a certain topic related to Scrum I advise them to open the Scrum Guide and have it as reference.
But even after it is being read, by some, did they really understood it? For example in the Scrum Guide there are lots of interesting and deep topics, for example:
– “complex adaptive problems” -> this points to an entire discipline regarding complex systems;
– “Facilitating” -> A two days workshop can be made only to understand what facilitation is.
Arie van Bennekum, co author of Agile Manifesto, does this. Interesting and deep thoughts also Dave Snowden has about this subject.
And these are just two examples from the Scrum Guide.
But is even more, I speak about history of Scrum like writings of Nonaka.
I begun to have reluctance of the so called Agile Coaches who actually know only Scrum but when you dig deeper actually they do not know about Scrum neither.
But a bigger problem is that a lot of people in industry think Scrum=Agile and is not like this at all. Scrum has it’s place like the other agile methodologies.
So, ‘Should we just give up on the Scrum Guide?’ I hope not. We should encourage people read the Scrum Guide and then to think upon it. Is useful, it provides a common ground when speaking about Scrum. Also, I consider the guide a very condensed/compressed information waiting to be unrolled.
(1) Allen Holub, “Should we just give up on the Scrum Guide? Nobody’s read it.”: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/37631/37631-6340348761025454083
(2) Scrum Guide: http://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html