Complementary Practices

Scrum is a framework. It provides an essential structure for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products. Rather than prescribing a specific way to do things, Scrum offers a set of accountabilities, events, artifacts, and a small group of rules that teams can use to build their processes and practices.

It’s like the basic structure of a house. The walls, floors, ceilings and roof define the overall shape and form of the house. Still, within that structure, the homeowner can make countless design and decoration decisions to tailor the home to their needs and preferences. Similarly, Scrum provides teams with a foundational structure, but within that structure, they can innovate and adapt based on their context and challenges. This flexibility within a structured environment allows teams to iterate, learn, and continuously improve their processes and the products they create.

A Scrum Team needs lots of additional practices to create a product. Scrum does not define which ones. Each team has to find practices suitable to their product and circumstances. There are no best practices, only emergent good practices that a team can use and decide to keep, abandon or replace. You can compare Scrum with the game of Chess. Knowing the chess rules does not make you a great player. Having additional strategies and tactics to win a game is essential.