Do you find Scrum Nokia Test useful?

Question

It seems Scrum and Agile tests/assertions are becoming popular this year. For example, Nokia test for Scrum. I don't think it is a good idea to have such tests at all. What do you think?

Answer 1

I just quickly took the test and found that the questions were good questions to ask anyone who claims to be doing Scrum. I'd also ask questions such as:

• Do you have an automated build process?
• How often does it run?
• What happens when the build breaks?

OTOH, a test like this is useful as a self assessment, but I would not 'rate' a team based on a test.

Answer 2

On the one hand, there are more and more people that claim they are agile, so such a test allows to sort out those in the line of "we're doing XP, we do not comment our code".

But how can we be sure people will understand the question the right way and not answer "well, we have iterations. We often have to extend them a bit to meet our committements, but we do have four weeks long iterations." ?

On the other hand, the link you provided in interesting as it's not the initial version, and it's backed by Jeff Sutherland.

The point is : you cannot sumarize a development methodology with eight questions. Therefore, IMHO, the test alone is interesting, if answered with a correct understanding of the question. It can be helpful for teams that wants to improve. I won't say the same thing for the results that are collected with this test.

This infoQ article says it in a better way: Simple checklists can provide a useful quick-and-dirty assessment. They won't tell you if the practices are actually delivering results.