Scrum adoptions: technical and advanced
Learning Scrum technically is the recommended first step for any team starting out in agility. Applying the rules exactly as defined—with no shortcuts or premature customizations—allows the team to understand what each element is for before modifying it.
Technical Scrum
Technical Scrum means following the framework faithfully: the three roles (Scrum Master, Product Owner, and developer), the five events (sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective), and the three artifacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and increment). It is the ideal starting point because:
It creates a common base of language and expectations within the team. It allows the team to clearly identify what works and what does not before modifying it. It facilitates communication with other teams and with the organization.
Advanced Scrum
Once the team has internalized the framework and gained experience through retrospectives, it can begin adapting the rules to its own context. This is the advanced or pragmatic adoption. Some common adaptations:
Modify the duration or format of events according to the team's pace. Combine Scrum with Kanban practices to manage workflow. Redefine roles based on the organization's structure. Incorporate technical practices from XP into the development cycle.
The key is that every adaptation should stem from a conscious decision by the team, backed by experience, and not from a desire to avoid the initial discomfort of the framework.
Adapting the framework for working with AI
Integrating generative AI tools into teams' daily work is raising new questions about how to adapt the framework. Some are technical (how do you estimate a user story when part of the work is performed by an AI?), while others relate to process (how do you define "done" when the output is automatically generated?).
Here are some adaptations that teams are exploring:
- Extended acceptance criteria: when a story involves AI output, the acceptance criteria include output quality metrics and explicit human review.
- Daily Scrum with AI: some teams report the status of their AI pipelines or agents in the daily meeting alongside the human work, in order to maintain visibility over the whole.
- Adjusted estimation: a team's velocity can change significantly when AI tools are introduced. It is advisable to revisit the estimation baseline and not to assume that previous story points remain comparable.
Common Pitfall
Jumping straight to advanced Scrum without having practiced the technical aspects. Customizing the framework before fully understanding it often leads to the removal of the very elements that cause the most discomfort—yet these are the same elements that provide the most value: the retrospective, the client review, or the Definition of Done. The result is a process that may be called "Scrum," but one that has lost its mechanisms for continuous improvement.
Resources
📄 Scrum Master 5.0Free download · Scrum Manager
See Also
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