For the second time in sequence, I read an article with that shocking title.
It seems that the issue is all about misleading simplicity and misunderstood of practices of Scrum and debate about Scrum Master and CSM certificate.
I think most of articles mention Scrum not because it is the popular Agile method, but because It is the most misunderstood method and incorrectly practiced. Also, the only method that has certificated practitioners!
For example, having a daily stand-up meeting is simple, but what guarantees its successfulness and effectiveness. So, it is easy to claim that you have a daily stand-up meetings regularly and effectively, while, you can not claim, for example, that you are practicing Continuous Integration like in Extreme Programming unless you have CI server and software, version control system, and all supporting mechanisms.
I want to make it clear that I’m not a real Agile practitioner yet. I’m in a Research & Adopting stage. And I found out that the Biggest Exclamation & Question Mark is “How to make sure that I’m correctly practicing Agile and gaining the expected benefits?!” ___not just working in cycles !!!
Extreme Programming, XP, was the first method to read about and It was very exiting for me because It has practices and rules to assure staying on track. As a developer I appreciate Unit testing, Test-driven Development, Continuous Integration and Collective Ownership of Code and their effect on software quality, so that was a big plus. I didn’t like having Pair-Programming as a must.
I think I faced a problem with Release Planning and Iteration Planning. May be that was the reason to consider Scrum a simpler method while carrying out all best practices from XP.
