Originally written at pooyan.info
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Once a wise man said: Fire all Scrum Masters and your non-technical managers who run your IT departments, and watch your productivity to boost up! In most cases, all you need is to hire highly-experienced Tech Leads and show trust in them. Communicate with them and share your insights, answer their questions, and provide them with what they need, including but not limited to the budget, time, ad-hoc specialist consultants, and coaches who would work for them to improve their non-technical skills. The rest, they will figure out themselves.
Why traditional management didn't fit IT?
Traditional management was designed for industries where work is predictable and repeatable and structured in a way that allows managers to oversee and control output through rigid processes. However, IT projects, especially software development, are highly unpredictable and creative and require continuous learning and adaptation. Traditional management's command-and-control style slows decision-making, discourages innovation, and often results in micromanagement instead of trust-based leadership.
What problems Scrum wanted to solve?
Scrum was introduced to address the inefficiencies of waterfall-style project management, where long planning phases often led to outdated requirements, a lack of flexibility, and frustrated developers. It aimed to bring more collaboration, iterative delivery, and adaptability to changing business needs. The core idea was to empower teams, break down silos, and reduce bureaucracy while focusing on delivering working software frequently with customer feedback.
Agile Manifesto vs. Scrum
Many assume that Scrum and the Agile Manifesto are the same, but they serve different purposes. The Agile Manifesto is a set of guiding values and principles designed to foster flexibility, collaboration, and responsiveness in software development. Scrum, on the other hand, is a framework that attempts to implement Agile principles through structured roles, events, and artifacts.
While Scrum tried to align with Agile in theory, its real-world implementation often contradicts the core values of the Agile Manifesto. Instead of prioritizing individuals and interactions over processes and tools, many Scrum implementations become rigid and bureaucratic, focusing on enforcing rules rather than enabling teams. This raises the question: if Agile promotes adaptability and self-organization, why has Scrum become so prescriptive in practice?
What is Extreme Programming (XP)?
Extreme Programming (XP) is an Agile software development methodology that emphasizes technical excellence, continuous feedback, and teamwork. It introduced practices like pair programming, test-driven development (TDD), continuous integration, and frequent releases to ensure high-quality software. While Scrum focuses more on process and roles, XP focuses on engineering practices that enable rapid iteration and code quality. Many Scrum teams unknowingly borrow XP practices but fail to implement them properly.
Traditional management with a nice shiny name?
Unfortunately, in many organizations, Scrum has become nothing more than traditional project management disguised under new terminology. Instead of empowering teams, many Scrum Masters and managers use daily standups as micromanagement tools, Sprint planning as a tool to push developers with tight, unreasonable deadlines without asking the "why" questions and clarifying the main goals to achieve, and velocity metrics as a means to pressure developers. The original goal of self-organizing teams has been lost, replaced by rigid processes that feel just like old-school management but with new buzzwords and many different meetings with slim to no outcome!
Final words
What is often practiced under the name of Scrum is, in many cases, a flawed combination of poorly adapted XP practices and outdated management habits. Instead of fostering trust and autonomy among software developers, many organizations have turned Scrum into a rigid system that prioritizes tracking metrics over meaningful progress. The original intent of Agile—to encourage adaptability, collaboration, and self-organization—gets lost when processes become more about control than empowerment.
Take daily standups as an example. They were meant to help teams align and plan their day efficiently. Yet, in many environments, they have become status-reporting sessions where managers scrutinize progress and pressure individuals to be "faster." This misunderstanding of Agile leads to an obsession with speed rather than sustainable development. Agile is not about rushing work through arbitrary deadlines or excessive meetings; it is about creating an environment where teams can adapt, innovate, and deliver real value.
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