The movement turned into meetings. What to do about it?
| I still believe in Agile | But here’s what I don’t believe in |
| – I believe in delivering value early. – In working closely with stakeholders. – In responding to change over following a plan. | – Rituals without results – Burn-downs that burn people out – And “Scrum Masters” who don’t write code, but schedule meetings |
Somewhere along the way, Agile lost its soul — and Scrum took over.
What Agile Was Supposed to Be? The Agile Manifesto is short:
“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.”
It values:
- Individuals and interactions
- Working software
- Customer collaboration
- Responding to changes
That’s it. No sprints. No Jira/Gitlab tickets. No ceremonies.
Just principles and trust.
What Scrum Added?
- But over time, Scrum became less about agility and more about administration:
- Daily standups that feel like status reports
- Story points debated like poker chips
- Two-week sprints that destroy flow
- Retros that go nowhere
- And a rigid backlog that doesn’t reflect reality
For some teams, this works. For many? It’s theater.
In my experience, Scrum broke us. We are not failing Scrum. Scrum is failing us.
What need:
- Time to work between “dailies” (aka biweeklies)
- Room to speak, without pressure.
- Freedom to release incrementally, not sprint-by-sprint
- Use Agile Principles, Not Just Agile Tools
- Follow value. Build fast. Get feedback. Iterate. Drop the dead weight.
- Kill meetings that don’t produce value
- Async standups
- Weekly planning
- Let engineers drive the process
What’s Your Take? Is your team thriving with Scrum
