title: Scrum: too much or not enough?
body: <p>My company has recently started using Scrum; we've done 2 sprints. We're still learning, but we've definitely exposed and fixed some problems in our development process already. So in general I think it has been good for us.</p>
  
  <p>In reading many of the internet musings about Scrum from evangelists, cynics and everyone in between, three common and somewhat contradictory themes have stood out to me:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Scrum implementation fails because the processes of Scrum are not followed closely enough.</li>
  <li>Scrum implementation fails because the organization does not adapt Scrum to its own environment/culture/practices.</li>
  <li>The processes of Scrum are not important; only the values in the Agile Manifesto matter.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Examples of these can be seen in the responses to these SO questions:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/272253/have-you-had-a-bad-experience-with-scrum-or-sprinting">Have you had a bad experience with Scrum or Sprinting?</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/343162/is-scrum-evil">Is Scrum evil?</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/301993/is-agile-development-dead">Is Agile Development Dead?</a></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I have to admit that we're not yet following all the guidelines of Scrum: we haven't done a release at the end of the sprints, our Scrum Master doesn't want us to move tasks out of the sprint backlog near the end of the sprint so that he can see how much our planning was off (which means the burndown chart never goes to 0), and urgent customer support issues still have incredible power to disrupt everyone's planning, for a few examples.</p>
  
  <p><strong>My question is:</strong> in trying to solve these and other issues, is it better to try and be closer to the official Scrum processes, better to be closer to some of our pre-Scrum processes, or better to meditate on the principles of Scrum to try and come up with a different process altogether?</p>