5 Scrum Rules Teams Still Struggle With (and How to Fix Them)

Scrum is simple. The rules fit in a 14-page guide. But if you’ve worked on a Scrum team, you know the truth: simple doesn’t mean easy. We surveyed hundreds of Scrum Masters, Product Owners, developers, and managers. The results? Even when teams know the basics, reality often looks very different. In this video, Mike Cohn and Brian Milner break down five Scrum rules that are easy on paper but often make or break teams in practice: • Clear roles → avoid role confusion and misaligned ownership • Succeeding together → stop working in silos, start finishing as a team • Realistic commitments → end constant carryover and overcommitment • Valuable events → make retrospectives, dailies, and sprint planning worth attending • Healthy backlogs → refine together, split work well, and avoid chaos Scrum is easy to understand, but hard to master. This video shows how to close the gap between “knowing Scrum” and living Scrum. 👉 Want your team to go deeper? Check out our Working on a Scrum Team course: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/... #Scrum #Agile #ScrumMaster #ProductOwner #AgileCoaching Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:35 Clear Roles on Scrum Teams 01:32 Succeeding Together as a Scrum Team 02:27 Realistic Commitments for the Team 03:17 Keep Scrum Events Valuable 04:05 Keeping a Healthy Backlog 05:06 Knowing the Scrum Rules Isn't Enough