After a past experience with Scrum I wanted to write about the conditions under which Scrum projects can fail. A Google search located a presentation from Joseph Pelrine and Jiri Lundak describing a workshop they ran to reveal why Scrum projects fail (http://tinyurl.com/9j2az6). Pelrine and Lundak’s workshop starts by considering the conditions for project failure. This seems like an important first-step but I realized the question may be misleading.
I’m going to use a different approach by asking the question; under what conditions is Scrum applicable? Why ask the question? I was watching Ken Schwaber’s Google Tech Talk video titled ‘Scrum et al’ (http://tinyurl.com/j58cr). 29 minutes into the video Ken states 30-35% of Scrum implementations succeed. What happened to the other 65-70% of Scrum implementations?
After further consideration the question can be broadened to other tools/techniques/methodologies for running software projects, for example; under what conditions are Gantt charts applicable? or, when is waterfall development applicable?
Changing the question helps me address other persistent questions like; why do we still use Gantt charts? Why is waterfall development still used?
Take a look at your own project; what tools, techniques and methodologies are you using? Now comes the hard question; why do you use them?
Posted by robertmacgregor 
