Scrum is not Project Management

Scrum, and the way of thinking that it attempts to socialize in the world of work, has nothing to do with project management. Anyone who is laboring under the misapprehension that Scrum is some form of “Agile Project Management” is seriously missing the point. There may be such a thing as “Agile Project Management”. I don’t know, and don’t really care. It is of no interest to me. My concern is with changing the way people think and act, not with force-fitting old ways of thinking into a new paradigm that cannot accomodate it. The result we are seeing is a half-baked compromise.

Organizations like PMI, Scrum Alliance, ICAgile and others who are trying to grab a slice of the Agile market are like parasites feeding off the souls of people who really care about change in the world. It is a tragic mess, made worse by those so-called Agilists who justify the behaviour, and even buy into it. Old habits die so very, very hard.

I am not interested in half-measures, or “corporate-approved Agile”. This strikes me as worse than useless. At least the previous command and control culture was honest. This fake-Agile is deeply disingenuous, pandering as it does to those in fear of real change.

I urge anyone who really cares about the future of business, and the health of human beings in the workplace to steer well clear of all these oblique, money-making, compliance-seeking efforts to tone down Agile and make it palatable to those driven to maintain the status quo. Seek something more noble. Please.