I don’t agree with this statement from the Scrum Guide!
![A wall with vaguely displayed text saying “So close but so far.” A wall with vaguely displayed text saying “So close but so far.”](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe23c10d0-581f-4df2-97a2-fe70f2669986_800x533.jpeg)
According to the Scrum Guide Scrum is:
“… Simple to understand, difficult to master.” — Scrum Guide
As you may know I agree with a lot of what is stated in the Scrum Guide, but I don’t agree with this statement. If it were true then there wouldn’t be all these misconceptions about Scrum, leading to destructive implementations of the framework.
One of the reasons to state that Scrum is simple to understand is that the Scrum Guide is only 19 pages while other — traditional —product development approaches have hundreds of pages. I don’t see this as a convincing argument, because Scrum is so radically different, moving away from traditional product development thinking.
What is so difficult to understand about Scrum?
There are a couple of things that just aren’t so simple, starting with the foundation of Scrum.
The complex product environment
“Scrum is a framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products.” — Scrum Guide 2017
When people are contemplating to use Scrum, one of the first things that has to come up is: “is my product environment complex?” Scrum is created to be used in these kinds of environments. Many environments ARE indeed complex, but if people fail to understand that this is an important factor to use Scrum will lead to misunderstanding of what Scrum is about. People then may either:
use Scrum while still doing detailed planning beyond the Sprint;
use the roles, events and artifacts without understanding WHY.
A failure to understand why Scrum has the roles, events and artifacts can lead to ineffective implementations.
Empiricism
“Scrum is founded on empirical process control theory, or empiricism.” — Scrum Guide 2017
Understanding that Scrum is created for complex product environments is one thing. Being aware that for this Scrum follows a certain process approach — empiricism — is another.
If one would understand the fact that Scrum exists for complex environments, but fail to understand that this is why Scrum is founded on empiricism, then she/he still will fail to be effective with Scrum’s roles, events and artifacts.
Simple to use, difficult to understand, a journey to master
If you would ask people what they think defines Scrum, then they will almost certainly mention the roles and events. And perhaps the artifacts. Hardly anyone will discuss things like “complex product” and “empiricism”.
People that don’t link ‘complex product’ and ‘empiricism’ to Scrum don’t understand Scrum.
I dare to state that Scrum is difficult to understand, but as soon as you do understand it, it is relatively easy to master, because you then know why Scrum has these practices, rules and values. The difficulty to truly understand what Scrum is about makes it difficult to master.
By stating that Scrum is ‘simple to understand’ people may assume falsely that they can really understand it relatively easily without much thought about it. And this can have destructive effects.
You may argue that you just read a short and simple article that brought forward what Scrum is about. Perhaps, but millions and millions of people don’t get it, leading to many terrible Scrum implementations. So my argument still stands.
I believe that Scrum is simple to use, difficult to understand, a journey to master.
You can easily start using Scrum without understanding it. Many use Scrum this way. Once you understand it though you will find that you are on a journey to master it, like Alice in Wonderland.