“Can We Tweak Or Change Scrum?”

A question I often receive when working with teams is…

“As a Scrum team, are we allowed to tweak or change Scrum?”

Sure!

Feel free to:
👍 Do the Daily Scrum only 2–3 times per week
👍 Not use Sprint Goals
👍 Change the Definition of Done during the Sprint
👍 Skip the Sprint Review
👍 Don’t use a Product Goal
👍 Include a Definition of Ready

Do notice that it’s not Scrum anymore. ❌

I don’t say this with any negative judgment. I love it when teams experiment to determine what works best for them. That’s only healthy behavior and shows they care about their work.

But Scrum only works in its entirety. As the Scrum Guide puts it:

“While implementing only parts of Scrum is possible, the result is not Scrum. Scrum exists only in its entirety and functions well as a container for other techniques, methodologies, and practices.”

Instead of tweaking Scrum, I recommend teams explore the reasons for changing the framework.

🤔 What really causes the need to change Scrum?
🤔 If you’re brutally honest, is Scrum the problem? Or are you ignoring a different problem in your team?
🤔 What problem would changing Scrum solve? What becomes possible?

If a team still wants to tweak and change Scrum, I encourage them to try it. I only strongly recommend they keep doing the Retrospective and openly reflect if the changes actually made a positive difference.

I would rather work with teams that challenge the Scrum framework instead of following the rules & principles as a bunch of zombies! 🧟‍♀️

So, keep experimenting and figure out what works best for your team!