The fourth Scrum Wave (shows that the journey is far from over)

In August 2024, the 4th edition of my book “Scrum — A Pocket Guide” was published. I created it because I am continuously uncovering better ways of explaining Scrum and want to help people by sharing these ways. Luckily, my publisher, Van Haren Group, agreed that there was value in making my update available (again) for the many friends of Scrum around the globe.

In my announcement I said I was planning to share a few excerpts from the updated version. Find herewith the (slightly edited) excerpt with my thoughts and observations on the past waves of Scrum and the rise of the 4th Scrum Wave.

As I described in my paper “ Scrum: A Brief History of a Long-Lived Hype”, the Scrum process for software development was shaped throughout the 1990s and has kept its simplicity to date. The Agile movement took off in 2001 with the publication of the “ Manifesto for Agile Software Development”. This new paradigm quickly took root and its adoption via Scrum has been increasing steadily, also beyond software development where it originates from.

A widely accepted model to assess and represent the degree of adoption of a technological product or service is Geoffrey Moore’s ‘Technology Adoption Life Cycle’ (TALC).

Geoffrey Moore based his specific variant of the general adoption life cycle on the difference observed in the adoption pattern for technology products or services representing an important disruptive discontinuity. Moore confirmed that the general adoption phases and audiences of such products are in line with those of traditional products that are part of a more continuous evolution. But Moore observed and added a period of stagnation after the phase of Early Market. It is a period where adoption stalls. An unpredictable time passes by before entering the next phase of adoption, the Bowling Alley. Moore called this period the Chasm. Some products never even get out of this stand-still and simply disappear.

During the highly turbulent phase of the Bowling Alley a gorilla is formed, a market leader. Until the product disappears from the market, gorilla-market leaders are difficult to overthrow.

During the Tornado phase, the adoption and dominance of the now must-have product keeps increasing. But it is only a highly creative phase that ignites even more innovation for those willing to head the herd, for those that allow the new, must-have product to drive forward the emergence of fundamentally new infrastructure, businesses and organizations, potentially causing even complete swap-outs of them.

In addition to the use of Agile for the delivery of new, possibly disruptive, products and services, Agile is a new, disruptive paradigm in itself. Moore’s TALC is a tool to consider the adoption of Agile.

Around 2007 Agile as a new paradigm was crossing the Chasm. Up to that point, evidence on Agile was mostly anecdotal and generally based on individual enterprise adoptions, isolated cases and personal storytelling. This is typical for these early phases of the adoption life cycle. It is equally typical that mostly enthusiasts and visionaries were attracted by it. But once Agile crossed the Chasm, it also became attractive to a broader audience, the audience of early majority-Pragmatists. They typically look at the business or competitive advantages of a less proven paradigm and compare its problem-solving capabilities to the existing paradigm for the decision to adopt it, or not.

Important evolutions and revolutions in the world of technology, online and digital in 2007–2008 certainly boosted the need for a new approach to software and software development. This definitive breakthrough of the Internet era sparked the interest in and likely caused the steep advent of Agile methods, getting the paradigm to cross the Chasm. Subsequently, the publication of the results of several surveys and research projects confirmed the common perception that Agile had indeed gradually been overtaking the waterfall model and that Agile had crossed the Chasm. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, even many financial institutions began adopting Scrum to ensure their future competitiveness, as I was able to document for a large financial organization headquartered in the Netherlands in 2012.

The post-Chasm years of Agile show many back-and-forth movements. These post-Chasm years of Agile are marked by a strong whirlwind with Scrum as an anchor and reference.

Inside of this whirlwind, three waves of Scrum have manifested so far:

• The first wave of Scrum was mostly a reconnaissance wave. Organizations found that the old, industrial ways no longer sufficed to solve, or even patch up, the problems in their IT and software delivery, certainly in the era of online and digital. Scrum was typically adopted as the new IT delivery process.
• During the second wave of Scrum, large organizations discovered they were at the end of the old ways of working too. Their leadership typically looked for ways to fit some derivative of Scrum into their existing, large organizational structures and thus ‘scale’ it. While Scrum’s terminology was everywhere, sub-groups and derivative methods and movements trying to capitalize on this need took off. New names, movements and methods were invented, introduced, launched, and often disbanded again. As Scrum entered this new market segment, divergence and ‘scale’ became the dominant themes.
• In the third Scrum Wave, organizations adopted Scrum, or some derivative, as the focal point of so-called ‘Agile transformations’. These efforts were typically limited to building Agile teams only and used traditional, industrial thinking patterns. The result was rarely more than creating an illusion of agility. Often after a few years of investing, the deflation by reality hit hard when organizations found that their actual increase in agility was not what they hoped it would be. A vast majority of such transformation efforts plainly failed. More Agile teams does indeed not make a more Agile organization.

What the future following these three Scrum Waves brings is unsure.

The whirlwind might start calming down. It could also change position or direction. Or it might circle towards areas unknown. Regardless, as even more organizations in even more domains of society continue to start using Scrum, its dominant gorilla position in Agile post-Chasm is confirmed.

Rather than remaining in the third Scrum Wave, I believe we are entering a fourth Scrum Wave. What its predominant themes will be remains unsure. After all, while we can remember the past, we cannot remember the future. However, we can shape the future.

Shaping the future of Scrum will certainly require courageous practitioners who, regardless of their role, function or position, will need to step up and help their organizations and leadership to overcome the stagnation following the disappointments over the many failed Agile transformations and the complacency connected to the mass adoption of Scrum. The message to leadership that Scrum is a well-defined and clearly stated, yet highly flexible solution (because the rules leave much room for variation) is still a valid message. There is no need for management to impose the same one way of Scrum on every team throughout an organization. It is possible to standardize on Scrum without industrializing it to death.

I also believe that entering the fourth Scrum Wave coincides with transitioning into the Tornado phase of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle of Agile. It means that Scrum will be used most effectively by organizations that have the vision, the courage and the determination to re-organize around Scrum and emerge with new structures around Scrum, potentially even a completely new organization. It will certainly require much courage of practitioners, regardless of their role, function or position, to step up and help their organizations and leadership overcome the fear to touch, update and re-think the organizational structures, procedures and constructs around Scrum.

It might require a select, new generation of visionaries and pioneers (of the kind that got us out of the waterfall trap). If enough practitioners move their particular instances of Scrum downfield in this way we will, in turn, collectively and bottom-up, start moving the global movement of Scrum downfield.

The journey is far from over.

Scrum emerged as the gorilla of the Agile family of methods. Scrum is the de facto standard against which to measure and to oppose. Or to join.

As the fourth Scrum Wave rises, we know that the journey of Scrum is far from over…

Read the book for my description of Scrum. Check out its global availability to get your copy.

Originally published at https://guntherverheyen.com on October 7, 2024.