Scrum as defined in SAFe

I'd agree that what is described in SAFe is not Scrum as it's defined in the Scrum Guide. They do call the team-level process framework "ScrumXP", but I see only tangential relationships between either Scrum or XP in the detailed description. Some of the descriptions of cross-team dependency management, large solution or portfolio, and enterprise practices aren't the best choices for supporting either Scrum or XP at the team level, either.

I can't speak to if the maintainers of SAFe think that they are describing something consistent with Scrum, but adding or removing things from the Scrum framework is allowed. However, as the Scrum Guide says "implementing only parts of Scrum is possible, the result is not Scrum." There are plenty of reasons why a team may change a core part of Scrum and make a process that is highly effective for them, but continuing to call that Scrum doesn't do anyone much good and only serves to confuse people or make it more difficult to have a conversation about the way of working with others.

Personally, I would prefer it if SAFe scrubbed references to "Scrum" and "Scrum Master" from their framework. They could point to the Scrum Guide as a useful reference if they wanted to, but I don't see any way to avoid confusion if someone talks about Scrum as it's defined by SAFe versus Scrum as it's defined in the Scrum Guide without qualifying it.

Hi Thomas!

I very much agree with what you're saying. It's unfortunate that Scrum terminology is used when there clearly are so many deviations from both principles and definition. 

I found that there is actually an initiative to remove Scrum from SAFe.

http://remove-scrum-from-safe.tilda.ws/