I have heard Scrum criticized for encouraging/supporting an unsustainable pace of development. Partly I blame nomenclature. Scrum calls each iteration of development a “Sprint,” and this just brings to mind a race to the finish line. It is built into the definition of the word “an act or short spell of running at full speed,” and even one of Scrum’s creators Jeff Sutherland consistently quotes statistics like a team achieving a 400% increase in productivity using Scrum.  All of this combined with over-zealous managers, Product Owners and a general urgency to get things done can lead to teams believing that Scrum is just an endless race, a head’s down sprint that never ends until everyone is exhausted or quits.

In practice this is not only not true, but it is not Agile (as defined by the Agile Manifesto) – “Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.”

A constant pace indefinitely, this means a reasonable pace, this means a work/life balance pace. This means a pace where people can think about things and do the right thing the right way.  This is the opposite of the “death-march” waterfall method, the opposite of burning people out and burning people up. But in Scrum, who is ultimately responsible for setting this pace? It is never stated explicitly, but it is without question implicit in the following statement from the Scrum Guide, “The Development Team works to forecast the functionality that will be developed during the Sprint.” As well as, “The number of items selected from the Product Backlog for the Sprint is solely up to the Development Team. Only the Development Team can assess what it can accomplish over the upcoming Sprint.”

There is no question in Scrum that it is entirely up to the development team how fast they work. Their collective foot is on the gas pedal, they set the pace. Now of course you can argue that there can be pressure put on them by outside forces (including an unenlightened Product Owner or Scrum Master, managers, executives and other stakeholders), but in the end, if a company wants to do the right thing, they need to respect the pace set by the team, and the team needs to set a pace they can sustain.

To do anything less is less than Agile.