Don’t Make These Scrum Mistakes

Scrum is a project management framework and does not specify a set of how-tos or checklists that some other development processes define. Since Scrum can be implemented in various ways, it is easy—and often common—to misinterpret Scrum’s guidelines and make mistakes while implementing it. A new team, in their eagerness to “go agile” and adopt Scrum, often succumb to common pitfalls. Being aware of these mistakes is the first step toward avoiding or resolving them. Sumedha Ganjoo discusses and shares examples of some common mistakes that she notices new teams making. Examples include shared and unclear Scrum roles, excessive estimation, accumulating technical debt, failing to capture non-functional requirements including quality, and not having an effective retrospective. Scrum offers the opportunity to incorporate feedback iteratively, and watching out for these mistakes enables us to deal with them sooner. Learn about these mistakes, review your processes, and determine if you can improve the way your team does Scrum.