5 Reasons Your Scrum Project is Failing

Welcome to PremierAgile!

Recognized for 'Outstanding Leadership in Education and Learning' by the Education 2.0 Conference Dubai 2024

We are proudly recognized for Excellence in Agile Consulting and Transformation Services – 2023 by Economic Times and Times of India!

*Avail a Flat 10% Discount Across all our certification courses

*Avail Zero Interest EMI

We Offer World-class guidance to transform yourself as well as your organizations

Mega Offer! Access our Advanced courses for  just 21,999/- +Taxes

PremierAgile

With an objective to enable continuous learning and progression for our learners, PremierAgile curated several learning articles in the areas of Agile, Scrum, Product Ownership, Scaling, Agile Leadership, Tools & Frameworks, latest market trends, new innovations etc...

5 Reasons Your Scrum Project is Failing

5 Reasons Your Scrum Project is Failing

Nowadays, most organizations utilize Agile Methodologies like Scrum for their product/software development projects. The Scrum framework is different from the transitional project management methodology. It provides complete transparency to the Developers about the Product Goal to work on. It also establishes a hypothesis of how the work progress is happening and what blockers are on the way. However, there can be situations where Scrum fails to deliver the expected project goals. This article highlights five reasons because of which Scrum Methodology can fail in product/software development projects. So, let’s begin!

1. Lack of Understanding About Scrum Among Team Members

It’s possible that your team lacks knowledge of Agile Methodologies and Scrum. Without a good understanding of the Scrum principles and approaches, it is challenging to maintain a smooth workflow through Sprint Planning. 

Solution: As an Agile Leader, it is your responsibility to provide Scrum Training to your team through a Workshop. The Agile Training sessions must teach the members about the Scrum framework and the role of Scrum in project management. It explains to the team the distinct roles of the Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Project Manager.

Typically, the sooner the entire team starts Learning, the easier it becomes for them to follow the workflow principles of Scrum. 

2. Not Producing A "Complete" Status By The End Of A Sprint

The success of Scrum depends on the work progress made at the end of each Sprint. The discipline to produce a "complete" increment after each Sprint indicates how much work is done and what is remaining. It’s the developers’ responsibility to establish the Definition of Done in each Sprint with new feature development activities and bug fixes. 

Many teams start using Scrum but fail to delete the traditional waterfall mindset. As a result, the production and development quality suffers a lot. Eventually, the Product Owner fails to deliver a fully developed product feature to stakeholders. 

Solution: Stick to the Sprint Planning  and clear all Product Backlog Items (PBI) in each Sprint. Assign achievable User Stories depending on the team’s capacity. Conduct Daily Scrum to get status updates and find out blockers if any. 

3. Inconsistent Product Backlog Refinement

Often, many Agile Teams struggle to complete Sprint Planning successfully. It happens when the Developers take a bunch of User Stories for the current Sprint without doing Product Backlog Refinement. It leads to unsuccessful Sprints with multiple incomplete work items. 

In Scrum, it’s the responsibility of the Scrum Team to do Backlog Refinement. It is an ongoing process whether the Product Owner sets a Product Vision, the Developers build the Product Features, and the Scrum Master shares stakeholders’ feedback. The entire team works based on a shared understanding of the Sprint Goal. If not done correctly, the team is left with too many Product Backlog Items to finish by the end of the Sprint.

Solution: The Developers should effectively plan how to deliver the Product Backlog Item (PBI) at the earliest Sprint. The CSM should estimate team capacity and the time required to complete the remaining work items.

4. Lack Of Agility With Fixed Sprint Scope And Timeline

In Agile and Scrum, there is no fixed scope and timeline. Often the teams forget the agility Scrum offers and start fixing the scope instead. They perform Sprint Reviews to identify necessary product improvement requirements which defer from completing the original Product Goal. As a result, the initial estimates get ignored altogether.

Solution: The Product Owner should set the Product Goa for the entire team. Instead of fixing the scope, the Scrum Team can plan Sprint activities depending on the team's capacity.

5. Scrum As A Status Monitoring Tool Than A Framework

Developers who work with Agile software development methodologies need to understand that Scrum isn’t just a status monitoring tool. It isn’t a process but a framework. It has functionalities that allow faster development & integration activities with team collaboration. It makes continuous adjustments to the development process based on Sprint Planning and Release Cycles.

Scrum Framework is highly transparent, allowing the stakeholders to share constant feedback and track the status of the current Sprint. It eliminates the requirement of creating lengthy status reports. When the Scrum Team fails to utilize all these advantages of Scrum, it just works as a process. Naturally, the team fails to identify what they can improve and utilize the true potential of Scrum. 

Solution: Conduct a Sprint Retrospective at the end of a Sprint to know what went well, what didn’t go well, and what can be improved. It helps in refining the Scrum strategy for the next Sprint. 

Summing Up: How To Achieve Success With Scrum

Now you know why your Scrum Project might fail. We have already discussed the alternate solutions that can help you ignore making such mistakes. Overall, a responsible Scrum Master and skillful Developers can make the Scrum Project successful with continuous delivery. So good luck!

Reference

  1. https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/5-ways-fail-scrum

Author

Paula

Is a passionate learner and blogger on Agile, Scrum and Scaling areas. She has been following and practicing these areas for several years and now converting those experiences into useful articles for your continuous learning.