Scrum: Scrum Guide vs. SAFe

Recently, Den Sunny published a write up on the differencebetween Scrum Guide’s Scrum and SAFe’s Scrum. In the end, writers argued that SAFe should not use the word “Scrum” but something else.

I have a different point of view:

• The comparison of SAFe’s Scrum and Scrum Guide’s Scrum is flawed in itself. Scrum of Scrum Guide addresses a very specific scenario – Single team performing a complex job in isolation. In case of SAFe’s Scrum context is entirely different – Many Scrum and Kanban Teams (in SAFe terminology they are called Agile teams) work in a collaborative and coordinated environment on a complex job.
•  The more appropriate comparison of SAFe’s Scrum is with LeSS’s Scrum or Scrum at Scale’s Scrum or Spotify’s Scrum. All of these frameworks/methodologies address almost the same context – multiple teams working in a collaborative and coordinated environment on a complex job.
•  The article promotes the philosophy of “follow the book”. In my point of view “follow the book” thought process led to stagnation, innovation throttling, and herd mentality. “Follow the book” thought process essentially brings uniformity at the cost of context-specific solutions.

Feel free to add your comments to start a conversation.