Every couple of weeks on social media, we can see something along the lines of “Is Scrum dead?” or “Is Agile dead?” And I just want to chime in because this debate is so annoying to me that I really want to get rid of it once and for all. So — is Scrum dead?

Well, I think it kind of depends. If you are in the top percentile, maybe even beyond that, of Agile companies — you’re a SpaceX, you’re a Tesla, you’re Spotify — then I think it could be fair to say that Scrum is “dead” for you. Because you’re practicing it at such a high level, and it has become so second nature, that you don’t really need to think about it anymore. You just do it on a daily basis.

It’s just like tying your shoes. At some point in time, tying my shoes was a big issue for me. I needed some help, I needed some training, I needed to think about it and talk about it. It was top of mind for me. Nowadays, I don’t even think about it anymore — it’s just second nature. For these organizations, I think it’s fair to say that while Scrum isn’t literally dead, it has become so ingrained and automatic that they simply don’t care about it anymore.

But for the rest of the organizations, I find it a little bit ridiculous. Saying “Scrum is dead” while your company is super anti-agile, your products aren’t really working, your time to market is too long, nobody wants to work at your company anymore, and yet you still find the time in your day to go around saying Scrum is dead — it’s absurd. It reminds me of a morbidly obese person saying dieting is dead or exercise is dead. No, it’s not dead.

Please, please don’t be that person. It’s just ridiculous to waste your time on this kind of talk. If you’re working in an organization, bring it to the elite level in your field. And if you’ve truly done that, and then you think Scrum is dead, that’s fine — you’ve earned that opinion. But most likely, you’re not at that level. You’re just someone in an organization that isn’t being run very well. And instead of working on that problem, you’re talking about how the system “doesn’t work” in your opinion, and you’re wasting everyone’s time.

So please stop saying this — it’s just ridiculous. If you’re super fit, you can talk about dieting or exercise not being important. But as long as you’re not there, man, please give us all a break.