The 7 best Scrum / Agile articles I've read in 2022

I’ve read hundreds of Scrum and Agile articles this year. It’s that moment of the year to reflect and share the best articles I’ve read in 2022.

I want to stress these posts are my personal favorites. Their selection is not based on popularity or reads.

To remind readers of this subjectiveness, I put a picture generated by AI of Gremlins in the style of Wes Anderson I found on Twitter, just because I can! The Gremlins serve to remind people that my personal taste influences this article, and you might not necessarily agree with my choices nor be expecting Gremlins.

Without further ado, here are the ten best articles I’ve read this year, in no particular order.

#1. Don’t Make Data Scientists Do Scrum by Sophia Yang

2022 is the year Scrum has seen more and more criticism. This is a good thing because the Scrum community needs more feedback on what isn’t going well. In this article, Sophia Yang argues why data scientists shouldn’t be doing Scrum.

Sadly enough, much of this feedback will be dismissed as “They are not doing Scrum” instead of trying to see if there is an opportunity to learn something.

#2. Watch Out, Waterfall Ahead! The Truth About SAFe by Pawel Huryn

2022 is also the year that SAFe lost nearly all of its support in the Scrum community. It’s universally loathed. Pawel shares his first-hand experience of the nightmare of working in SAFe.

Articles criticizing SAFe have been written for many years. However, I do believe

Paweł Huryn

played a significant role in inspiring this whole anti-SAFe movement with his article.

#3. Scrum Has Failed The Developers by Willem-Jan Ageling

Most developers hate Scrum. My brother is a developer, and he hates Scrum. This is strange because Scrum is ultimately about empowering teams. If anything, they should like Scrum, but they don’t.

Willem-Jan Ageling

shows why this happens and what we can do about it. It doesn't mean we should stop doing Scrum, but we do need to address these issues surrounding Scrum.

#4. The 6 Stances Of A Scrum Master by Barry Overeem

I remember reading and being intrigued by the original Eight Stances of a Scrum Master back in 2016. Six years later, Barry Overeem reflects on the original article and the reasons why we should drop two of the eight stances.

Most of the time, when a concept gets revisited, new stuff gets added. We’re good at adding and expanding. It’s also way sexier than removing things (loss aversion kicks in). I like that Barry focused on removing what wasn’t necessary.

#5. The Starting with Scrum series by Erik de Bos

Erik de Bos

is a seasoned practitioner and excellent writer who is still in the trenches as a Scrum Master. This is a first: I'm not including a single article but a whole series. I picked this string of articles because I believe it's extremely helpful and fills a gap for teams that are new to Scrum and starting out.

A lot has been written on how to do Scrum and mistakes you shouldn’t be making. But how do you actually get started with Scrum? Answering this question is the main focus of the series.

#6. How can you extend the edges of Scrum to the extreme by Todd Lankford

Scrum Teams often put themselves in a box, and Todd shows how you can poke the box and break free. The article contains a list of experiments you can try to break free of the self-imposed limits of Scrum. What I like about this article is that it shows what often isn’t working in Scrum Teams and what you can do about it.

#7. Why Creating Tech Debt is a Necessary Evil by David Pereira

Tech Debt is a contentious topic. When the T-word is dropped, everybody panics. The destroyer of worlds and slowing down of progress has appeared.

David Pereira

, who used to be a developer, shows why tech debt is something we have to live with and learn how to deal with, and there isn't a one size fits all solution.

That’s all folks! I’ll try to do another one next year.

You can read the ones from previous years here:

The 10 best Scrum / Agile articles I read in 2021

The 12 best Scrum articles I read in 2020

8 best Scrum articles of 2019 I’ve read