From the Scrum Guide:
"… and determine if its philosophy, theory, and structure help to achieve goals."
From Cambridge Dictionary:
Determine: "To find out or make certain facts or information."
The Scrum Guide doesn’t assume Scrum is the right fit for everyone—it explicitly tells teams to assess its impact.
Yet, I often hear statements like: “We needed to remove, add, or modify parts of Scrum to make it work.”
But here’s the key question: have you actually tried Scrum as designed before modifying it? (See my earlier post “Try it as is.”)
The real measure of success isn’t: “Do we like Scrum?” or “Have we implemented Scrum?”, but rather “Is Scrum helping us achieve our goals?”
Too often, teams misjudge Scrum’s effectiveness due to misaligned expectations or incomplete adoption.
Some frequent pitfalls:
- Expecting immediate results—Scrum is not an instant fix.
- Judging Scrum based on comfort—change is uncomfortable but necessary for improvement.
- Blaming Scrum for organizational dysfunctions—Scrum exposes these; it doesn’t create them.
- Cherry-picking —without its full structure, Scrum can’t deliver its intended benefits.
- Lacking a clear definition of success—if you don’t define what ‘help’ means, how do you measure it?
If Scrum isn’t working as expected, dig deeper:
- Is Scrum being used as a whole system or selectively modified?
- Are organizational structures preventing success?
- Is the team actively inspecting and adapting, or just going through the motions?
Rather than discarding Scrum at the first sign of discomfort, use its inspect-and-adapt approach to refine how it’s applied.
If you want to fairly evaluate Scrum’s impact, try the following:
- Commit to using Scrum as designed for a least five Sprints
- Define what “help” looks like—what are your team’s goals?
- Inspect your ways of working regularly
- Seek feedback from stakeholders—are they seeing better results?
- Use data to assess impact—track evidence-based progress.
In the next few days, consider these questions:
- What has changed since your team started using Scrum?
- Are you focused on outcomes (better collaboration, faster delivery, more value) or just comfort?
- If Scrum isn’t helping—are you sure the issue is Scrum itself, or how it’s being applied?
I’d love to hear real facts and insights about why Scrum “as is” didn’t work for you—and what you did about it.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
I hope you find value in these short articles and if you are looking for more clarifications, feel free to make contact.
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Wishing you an inspiring read and a wonderful journey.
Scrum on!
