Last week, Jason Gorman compared Scrum to a virus. I would like to remind him that being infectious doesn't make something a virus. Laughter is infectious, but it is good for you. Laughter spreads quickly, because it makes those infected feel better.
In my opinion, Scrum and Laughter are two "viruses" that simply cannot spread fast enough.
Like the laughter contagion, Scrum also makes people feel good. It does so by making them successful—by helping them reach their goals.
In Jason's post, he exposes his believe that Scrum is nothing more than Snake Oil sold by consultants, then he exposes the fallacy in his believe with the following statement...
"...Scrum is not exactly rocket science. It shouldn't take long to get a practical handle on the key principles and practices. 5 minutes might be pushing it - but you can certainly figure most of it out in, say, a sprint or two."
That is exactly what we did at Decade Software Company. We were into our second sprint and making great progress, long before I received my certification as a ScrumMaster, and we were a year into the process, before I was certified as a Scrum Practitioner.
At our company, no Scrum consultant has ever darkened our door, but my development department has used Scrum to literally quadruple quality and quantity across the board, and today, our design, implementation, conversion, and client service teams are starting to see success with Scrum.
If Scrum is a virus, we don't want the cure.
"HL, I heard your Fireside Chat with Lisa Haneberg and was very impressed with what you had to say. I decided to check out your blog, which is great. I was particularly taken with your Agile / Scrum / HueyLong post. It's probably in my top 10 all time in the blogosphere, because it was entertaining and right on the money!"
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