Are You Really Doing Scrum? A Practical Scrum Litmus Test

"Scrum has a bad reputation in some organizations. In many cases, this is because teams did something they called Scrum, it didn't work, and Scrum took the blame. To counter this, when working with organizations, we like to define a small set of rules a team must follow if they want to say they're doing Scrum. Enforcing this policy helps prevent Scrum from being blamed for Scrum-like failures."

"It's definitely not in full compliance with the Scrum Guide. For example, I have not included living the five Scrum values in the litmus test. In some ways, one could argue that living those values is the ultimate litmus test for whether a team is doing Scrum. It's hard, though, for team members to know if they're living up to a value. So this litmus test uses simple yes/no statements that a team can use to determine whether they're really doing Scrum."

"To pass the Scrum Litmus Test, a team must have all of the following: A sprint length of one month or less; One or more people filling the role of the Scrum Master; One product owner and one product backlog; A sprint goal created every sprint; A daily scrum that focuses on progress toward that sprint goal; One usable Increment every sprint; A sprint review that includes real stakeholder participation; A sprint retrospective every sprint; A consistently applied definition of done."

Scrum often receives blame when teams label imperfect practices as Scrum. A concise litmus test defines mandatory Scrum elements any team must follow to legitimately claim Scrum. The test uses simple yes/no statements rather than values. Required elements include a sprint length of one month or less; at least one Scrum Master; one product owner and one product backlog; a sprint goal every sprint; a daily scrum focused on progress toward that sprint goal; one usable Increment every sprint; a sprint review with real stakeholder participation; a sprint retrospective every sprint; and a consistently applied definition of done. Missing any item indicates the team is not doing Scrum.

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