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Comment by sumtechguy | Hacker News Reader

His point is not exactly invalid though?

If you go into something with the intention of 'this sucks' and then do not even want to make it work would it not reason that it probably will fail?

Scrum usually fails because people become enamored with the process instead of thinking about what that process is for. Layering on more and more of it because something is not working. Until you are busy with 40% of your time just managing scrum. Something in scrum not working throw it out. Do not double down and add more.

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> if you go into something with the intention of 'this sucks' and then do not even want to make it work

we can rephrase this as "the serum didn't work because you didn't have faith in it."

Expanding on that, scrum is a religion. Like many/most religions, it requires faith, and that a lack of faith is singularly responsible for any failure of said belief/religion to deliver its promises.

I agree completely about scrum being a religion and lack of faith and all that, and I can't stand the "but that wasn't real scrum" automatic response that most of the defenders make.

But the GP point is valid. not every iteration can be blamed on "scrum" anymore than anything bad that happens in life can be blamed on Satan. If people want it to fail, they can make it fail.

But that said, to slightly counter my own point: I think that demonstrates a weakness with Scrum. If people following the system (even malicous compliance) can make it fail, then the system is flawed. It obviously sucks for those people or they wouldn't have a bad attitude about it. For example, Scrum likes to pretend that all engineers are fungible, but this is clearly wrong and a big problem with the system.

No. The doctor told you to take care of yourself but you went to McDonald's again.

People are stuck in their ways and don't actually want to try anything new. That's why management always fails- you can't manage people.

> People are stuck in their ways and don't actually want to try anything new

Those damn people. Business would go so much better if you didn't have to hire them /s

I can't tell if you are saying Scrum socks when people hate it or when people are enamored with it. I guess it will work if everybody is casually indifferent?

Scrum sucks when people ignore why they are using it and decide to use it just because everyone else is. indifference is usually the root cause of broken scrum. No one speaking up and saying 'lets fix this'. Things piled on for no real reason but not thrown out when they are shown to just be in the way. Throw in a 'bad actor' and yeah it can really suck but then the whole job will anyway no matter what your process. No one really wants to work with a grumpy person. That is not the fault of scrum that is a organization/people problem.

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