Here’s an article that just drives me nuts: Using Agile Scrum to Manage Developer Teams. The problem I have with this article is that it is just crazy bad in its use of language and ignorance about the fundamentals. Here are some examples:

Agile Scrum

This is not a thing. Agile is a philosophy of doing software development. Scrum is a particular instance of Agile. Saying “Agile Scrum” is kind of like always saying “furniture table” instead of just “table”. It shows a pretty fundamental gap in the writer’s knowledge.

As with any software development lifecycle (SDLC) framework…

Scrum is definitely not an SDLC. Scrum is a framework (and the author uses the term correctly a little earlier in the article) but is deliberately missing most of the details that would make it an SDLC. It is designed to be incomplete instead of complete. SDLC’s are meant to be complete solutions for delivering software. Scrum shows you the gaps and exposes the problems you have delivering products but doesn’t tell you how to fill in the gaps and solve the problems.

Next, the article mis-quotes Scrum.org by incorrectly capitalizing Product Owner and Scrum Master. And in some sort of ironic error, puts “Scrum master” in quotes. Yikes!

The conclusion of the article about when you might choose not to use Scrum is also a bit mis-guided. There are lots of organizations successfully using Scrum in highly regulated environments: medical, banking, government, etc. Some of them are even my clients! I would be happy to provide direct references if needed.

Finally:

Does your team work remotely? Despite advances in video technology and online collaboration tools, the requirements for structured daily contact makes Agile Scrum tough to implement successfully for virtual teams.

Yes, remote work is bad with Scrum. But it’s also just plain bad. Don’t do it if you can avoid it. All that Scrum does with a remote team is show you just how bad it really is.