Is Scrum hard to learn?

Scrum is easy to learn.

Getting certified as a CSM (Certified Scrum Master) is way easier than getting certified as a PMP (Project Management Professional). Compared to traditional project management approaches, Scum is much simpler. This simplicity is a strength that allows the team to stay agile and adapt when they encounter complexity and uncertainty.

Scrum is easy to learn but hard to master

Let’s take a quick look at what it means to learn Scrum. I’ll list out the core concepts, the roles, the rhythms, and the artifacts.

You’ve got the three core concepts (also called “pillars”) of Scrum.

1. Visibility
2. Evaluation. Also called “Inspection.”
3. Adaptation

There are three roles within the Scrum team.

1. Scrum Master
2. Product Owner
3. Development Team

Scrum works on a rhythm or cadence of meetings that keep the team in sync and allows them to adapt as things change. There are five meetings to learn.

1. Daily Scrum (also called the standup)
2. Backlog Refinement
3. Sprint Planning
4. Sprint Review
5. Retrospective

Scrum also has some artifacts, which are just the tools or processes Scrum uses. 

1. The backlog
2. Product Backlog Items (PBIs)
3. Definition of Done
4. User Stories
5. Points
6. Velocity
7. Increment

That’s it. Once you understand those concepts, you know the key elements of Scrum. But learning to practice Scrum is a bit more of an art.

Translating Scrum to your context

This obstacle is primarily for those teams not developing software. Scrum originated as the software development community adopted lean manufacturing concepts from Toyota. Because of this context, most Scrum training and materials are created for teams writing code.

You may have to do some translation if you’re not developing software. I had to do some translating as I led a creative department through the process of adopting Scrum. The same would be true if you apply Scrum to marketing or content creation teams. You’re starting to see some resources produced for other disciplines, but software development still dominates the space. This reality is actually why I created my “What is Scrum?” guide. I had so many people asking for non-software-based resources to learn Scrum.

the team learns Scrum faster than the leadership.

Some translation work might just be swapping words like “code” for “copy.” It will likely also include translating examples of how the work gets done. You may have to figure out questions like, “what does a user story look like for a marketing strategy or graphic design?” This task doesn’t rest solely on you. The team designs how work gets done, so your part may just be facilitating that new learning together. 

Learning new power dynamics in Scrum

Scrum is not a top-down framework. The Scrum Master is not the boss, and they master Scrum, not the Scrum team. In many teams and organizations, this will be a substantial shift. As I’ve worked with teams preparing to implement Scrum, I hear comments like, “how will we know if they're getting their work done?” or “somebody has to be in charge, who makes the decision at the end of the day?”

Scrum is hard for some leaders to practice because it’s hard not to be in control. But let’s be honest here. Control is an illusion, and it’s an illusion we’re willing to buy into because it seems to address our fears. I’ve found that if we do the work of identifying our fears, Scrum often has a better answer for those fears than top-down control does.

Many of the fears I hear from people involve leaders not trusting the teams to do their work, and Scrum addresses this fear quite well. Because visibility is the core concept in Scrum, every day during the daily Scrum, team members share the progress they are making, the problems they are facing, and what they will do next. The daily scrum provides so much more visibility into a team's work than almost any traditional manager has. 

Control is an illusion, and it’s an illusion we’re willing to buy into because it seems to address our fears.

At the end of a sprint, the team delivers finished work during the sprint review. This event is another moment where progress and quality are extremely visible and are being honestly evaluated. Again, this will be a higher level of accountability for most teams than they have experienced in the past.

Another shift that takes some getting used to is who owns getting work done. In Scrum, the team is responsible for all the work selected during sprint planning. So if a product backlog item doesn’t get completed, that’s not on one person; it’s on the team. There is a collective accountability that brings in a collective ownership. This shared ownership is more challenging in highly individualistic cultures.

Practicing Scrum is usually a shift from how things have been done in the past. But given time to learn and grow, teams usually become significantly healthier and more effective. 

Teaching Scrum to the organization

The last challenge is because the team learns Scrum faster than the leadership. We just looked at how Scrum involves learning new practices and even changing the culture and power dynamics of how work gets done. Because the Scrum team is in it every day, they tend to make this shift within a few sprints. But the rest of the organization can lag behind.

It's common to see leaders expect to come in a tell the team what to do and how to do it. They just see this as how things work and don’t understand how it undermines the team's agency and creativity. 

Scrum is hard for some leaders to practice because it’s hard not to be in control.

If you're a new Scrum Master in an organization new to Scrum, then a key responsibility you have is facilitating organizational learning. You’ll want to start with those closest to the Scrum team. 

Facilitating this kind of learning can come through workshops, slide decks and lots of conversations. My What is Scrum? Guide is a product of those many, many conversations. I had many leaders asking if there were something they could read that would help them understand Scrum. I tried using various other guides, books, or training, but many felt too general, too detailed, or too software specific. So like Goldilocks, I was looking for that resource that was “just right.” You can read through the guide online or download it.

To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.

If you want more, I also offer a few free coaching sessions each month.