The false claim that Scrum is immutable

The false claim that “Scrum is immutable”!

The Scrum Guide makes it clear that it’s a flexible approach that welcomes change, including in Scrum itself, during implementation. Every part of the “Guide” (including its name) discusses flexibility and adaptation.

However, many will rally around the battle cry that “Scrum is immutable” and scream about its lack of fundamental agility, forgetting that it’s a “guide” and that its creators were one-sixth of those who created the Agile Manifesto.

The paragraph that they take offence to is way down in the “endnotes” of the Scrum Guide and reads:

“The Scrum framework, as outlined herein, is immutable. 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.”

I can kind of understand where the confusion comes from if one only reads the “The Scrum framework, as outlined herein, is immutable.” and ignores the rest. Still, with the content of the rest of the guide, as well as the following sentence, it is quite explicitly clear that this refers to an immutability of definition and not of implementation! This is an extremely important distinction that results in the idea that:

You don’t have to implement Scrum as it says in the Guide at all. You can do whatever you want.

All the Guide “asks” is that if we change the game’s core rules, we should be honest, open, and transparent and that we are playing a different game. Is that too difficult a concept to grasp?

The only people having these arguments are practitioners; for everyone else… it’s irrelevant. Focus instead on the intent and purpose…

…are we delivering value regularly? …are we getting feedback regularly? …are we adapting our plans regularly? …are we reflecting regularly?