In my daily life as a Scrum Master, I witness many crazy situations. I want to share my discoveries via this comic series featuring Koos Coach, the silly Scrum Master struggling to understand and master Scrum.
Koos Coach comic: Deadlines
It is a myth to think that there are no deadlines when working with Scrum. Koos is not completely wrong here, every Sprint can indeed be considered to be a (mini) deadline. In addition to the urgency of delivering done every Sprint, larger deadlines possibly need to be met: Software development does not live in isolation. Our delivery might be a part of a larger release plan, for instance, because marketing wants to run a campaign to promote the product, or maybe our customer has a deadline for our delivery, etc.
Koos Coach comic: Why Scrum?
When Scrum was introduced, it was promoted by saying "Scrum would do twice the work in half the time". Although this resonates with to people focused on resource optimization, it does not focus on the true value that Scrum brings.
When thinking a bit deeper, we understand that by encapsulating empiricism, the purpose of Scrum is to maximize the delivery of value and minimize risk.
The greatest benefit of Scrum, and the reason why it is so difficult to master, is that it puts organizations on a journey to become adaptive by learning. The way the Scrum guide puts it:
Scrum makes clear the relative efficacy of your product management and work techniques so that you can continuously improve the product, the team, and the working environment.