Summary
David Kreth Allen reflects on the fact that in his experience "people
seem to favor artifacts and practices over principles."
My reply follows:
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David,
You nailed it! I have long wondered why Certified Scrum Master is such
a big hit? Personally, I liked the Scrum book and I was reasonably
happy with the 2-day CSM course I took in Calgary 5 years ago until
the moment we we given out Certificates. "Certified"? Have we stooped
so low as to call a 2-day mild collegiate discussion a certification
of something? Alas, apparently, this is what The People crave - a TLA
after their name.
I prefer The Road Less Traveled of software development - finding
teams of independent thinkers who are building leading edge
technology, who seek out and use best practices, but are not
interested in joining any religion and wasting time discussing the One
True Way...and I am looking for my next job now :)
Sincerely,
David Vydra, CSM
Read David's post here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/citcon/message/653 Thread: "that isn't scrum"
Large (and probably not-so-large) corporations like to have things be measurable by people who have no idea what they are measuring. This goes along with the idea that "a good MBA can manage anything," and can be applied to any area where an expert in one field (e.g. HR) needs to make judgements on another area of expertise.
Achievement against principles is hard to measure, even for people with shared principles and common expertise. Some would say you can't really measure it, that it requires "trust" and "judgement" based on prior "experience." Unfortunately for, say, a project manager with little development expertise who has a new team, there is no trust because he doesn't know the team. Trust is built through common experience and reputation. There can be no judgement because there is insufficient prior experience on which to base it.
But even a monkey can check off a box designated by a TLA.
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