Future Scrum Resistance

There isn’t much room left for developers to resist Scrum.¹

When the decision to do Scrum is made several levels above the programmer, and retrospective meetings (if they happen at all) never address problems with Scrum itself, and Jira (with its required fields and workflows) cannot be modified by developers, and management won’t engage with our complaints, we are pretty much stuck.

If companies continue to operate like this, we’re going to have to get more creative.

Here are a few of my latest thoughts on the issue:

1. Start Your Own Business or Do Freelance Work

This is the path I am most focused on lately, and I hope to provide some useful references soon. I'm chronicling my journey on this road as it unfolds and hope it will be encouraging for others to read about. Wish me luck! The idea here is to exit the system altogether. If working for others is going to be this painful, then starting a company can’t be any worse. Right?

2. Shadow Projects

Shadow projects are when you do your own thing, but you are still at work. It’s stuff that will help the company that isn’t necessarily “prioritized” or “sanctioned.” You work on it (secretly) alongside your normal work.

The key shift here is asking forgiveness instead of permission. Because backlogs take all the control away from individual engineers, secretly working on things that you feel are important and/or interesting is a way to take some control back.

3. Civil Disobedience

One place I worked, I stopped attending my daily stand-ups—in protest. The Scrum Master wouldn't allow the team any control or even time to coordinate our day. As soon as members were finished reporting their status (yesterday-today-no-blockers style), he would abruptly end the meeting. By skipping it, I never missed a thing. More than that, the tone of the meeting was confrontational and anxiety-inducing. I told HR the meetings were causing me mental distress.

Eventually, HR determined that Scrum was an "industry standard," so I had no recourse. My boss gave me a written warning that if I did not return to stand-ups, I would be terminated.

Eventually I caved and returned to my stand-up meetings (and started interviewing for a different job), but this action demonstrated a glimmer of potential. I could tell my manager was quite distressed to start down the path of firing me (I was the team lead, had positive annual reviews, was liked by many high-ranking engineers, and had recently received an award for teamwork). Had I not been the only one actively resisting Scrum (everyone hated it but few took step to fight it), or HR had more actively investigated my situation, I may have gotten more traction.

In retrospect, I wish I had held firm to at least see what would happen—I think I had more leverage than I realized. Regardless, I learned an important lesson. Civil disobedience has potential. If deployed effectively, it could be a powerful tool.

4. Malicious Compliance

When work requirements are clearly ridiculous, one option is to simply comply. Do everything they tell you to—even though you know it will torpedo the project. Don’t go above and beyond to rescue it; let the system play out as instructed. Just let the ship go down. In the wake of catastrophe, if you can clearly demonstrate there was zero negligence on your part, then (maybe) the system will take the blame.

This isn’t sabotage. It’s obedience—letting the system reveal its own flaws without rescuing it.

But beware. When a project fails, accusations will fly. For the most part, developers are not present in the right meetings to rebut or even be aware of many of the arguments hurled against them. So, your case has to be air-tight and self-evident—perhaps even presented in writing to provide a presence even in closed-door meetings where developers are not permitted.

5. Unions

I haven't looked too deeply into this option, but it's the classical way for workers to gain workplace representation. It has worked in other industries, so I think it has potential in ours. While I am most inclined to put my energy into starting my own company, I wholeheartedly support anyone else’s effort on this front—and would love to re-stack other people's research on the topic.

6. Spread Awareness

Keep talking and writing about the realities of forced Scrum. Share stories, document the harms, and expose the contradictions. It may take time, but as more people speak up and the costs of the system become undeniable, change will follow. History shows that flawed systems eventually crumble—but only if the truth is continually on display.

1. By Scrum, I mean ALL Scrum. It doesn’t really matter how you do it. Whether it’s completely by the book or you roll your own Scrum-like Frankenstein monster, it always sucks—because it always starts from the same flawed assumptions.