I recently joined Scrum.org as Chief Software Craftsman, which is a fun title 
. One of the first things I wanted to see at Scrum.org launches today as we we announce a model for embracing community influence of Scrum itself. Scrum is now open for modification and extension.
I would love to say Scrum is truly adherent to OCP (Open Close Principle), but the truth is we are always learning more about the practice of Scrum. Smart people find new ways of enacting Scrum?s values and principles. This means that on occasion, Scrum itself may change to support this learning. Ironically, this usually means Scrum becomes less prescriptive, and that is exactly what happened in this summer?s 2011 release of the Scrum Guide, which loosened some of the specific practices prescribed by Scrum.
James Coplien and I were asked by Ken and Jeff to act as aggregators for community proposals to extend and modify Scrum. James and I have created a model we hope provides enough formality that proposals are necessarily thoughtful, yet enough flexibility that good ideas are easily explained. The links at the bottom of this article will take you to pages that explain the process we designed.
In collaboration with Ken and Jeff, we will steward these proposals as they are provided. We are very excited to see how Scrum is being used!
We expect to see more proposals for extension than modification, and I encourage you to submit your own. If your team has extended Scrum with complimentary practices that do not violate the integrity of Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide, tell us about it.
Scrum Guide Links