From the days of its inception, Agile, and specifically Scrum, have been in a constant state of iterative refinement and evolution. Just as within a sprint, the more that’s known, the more we can improve aspects of the work. As teams around the world have adopted Scrum, more tools have become available, and the concepts of Agile reach ever-deeper into workflows, the inevitable talk about “what comes next?” or “a post-Scrum world” has begun. I don’t doubt Scrum as we know it today will evolve to meet the needs of an ever-changing technological workspace. However, I think the overall zeitgeist surrounding Scrum, and what’s brought it this far since the mid-90’s, will continue at its core more-or-less unchanged. The chart below does a brilliant job of defining the “lifecycle” of a concept, or philosophical approach to work. I find myself wondering where we as purveyors of Scrum are on this list? I’m not sure it can be broken down so simply into a chronological timeline. After all, there’s no way to put the concept of Scrum/Agile back into the bag now that it’s been around for a few decades. While it’s hard to imagine a better ideological approach coming along for certain kinds of iterative design, history has proven there’s always a better mousetrap lurking just around the next bend. I can’t help but wonder what that’s going to look like in the Scrum world.
