Zombies of Scrum
Photo by Dave Mathis
You’ve probably seen it: a team that has a standup meeting each day to provide status updates. A team that demos their work to stakeholders but rarely receives real feedback or changes. A team that works in “sprints” but may or may not have potentially releasable product at the end of the timebox. And the team is ok with this state of being.
I feel like these are the zombie teams of Scrum. Teams who have Scrum events but are not getting the value of them. They have lost sight of the pillars of empirical process control—transparency, inspection, and adaptation—and fallen into a mode of rinse and repeat instead.
These teams need a refresher on Scrum. Feedback. A purpose. I coach teams out of their zombie state so they are more engaged and productive.
Let’s keep zombies where they belong—dancing in classic music videos:
