ScrumBut, But Does it Matter? A Mixed-Method Study of the Planning Process of a Multi-team Scrum Organization

Context: Proponents of the Scrum software development method use the term "Scrum But" to refer to harmful changes to Scrum. Scrum has been increasingly adopted in large software development organizations. This has led to changes to Scrum practices, but it is not known if these changes are harmful. Objective: We studied how the requirements were planned and managed in the development teams of a large Scrum organization, how well the requirements planning and management practices matched Scrum, and whether the changes were perceived harmful. Method: We quantitatively analysed 435 requirements spanning a time period of approximately one year. We conducted a total of 40 interviews to study the Scrum adoption in the organization and to explain and validate the quantitative results. Results: The main discrepancies between the organization's practices and Scrum were the pacing of the planning process, which was more akin to a continuous process instead of the iteration-paced Scrum model, and the average time it took to develop requirements, which was considerably longer than the time prescribed by Scrum. The latter discrepancy was considered slightly harmful. Conclusion: Changes to the Scrum practices should be evaluated in their context to separate harmful ones from necessary or beneficial changes mandated by the organizational context.