I’m sure you’ve heard the argument before. “Scrum sucks, because it’s so easy to do wrong.” Or more recently, I heard in a LinkedIn post that agile sucks for the same reason. Or maybe it’s TDD. Or OKRs. Or daily stand ups.

If a methodology can be “done wrong” so often, then it probably is a problem with the methodology.

It sounds nice. It sounds clean. It sounds final. Especially if you’ve been burned by that methodology.

But is it valid?

Let’s consider… what if we apply the same litmus test to other things? Are there other things that are frequently “done wrong”? And does this flaw mean that these things are inherently bad?

Here are a few things that I think we can all agree are frequently “done wrong”. Do you think they’re bad?

• Cooking.
• Skiing.
• Eating healthy.
• Saving money.
• Driving.
• Humor.
• Exercise.
• Marketing.
• Democracy.

If you fear you may be “doing it wrong” with regard to software development and delivery, my self-paced video course, Ship Better Code, Faster is a good place to start. And the first session is free!