Scrum and Agile

Had a debate with a respected coworker recently about scrum. I'm skeptical about its values.

Pros of scrum

• Good at using team velocity and use it to predict deadlines and schedules
• Good at tracking %-completion of a project (burndown chart)
• Guards against assigning too much work to a single person

Cons of scrum

• Doesn't work well when one member of the team is much faster/efficient
• Corollary: Doesn't work well when there are silos and specialists in a team
• For a stuck project, does not tell you where it is stuck
• Doesn't work well at ensuring a project is fully completed before someone takes on something new

Scrum doesn't appear to work well in a place where people are required to take full ownership of a project; In an ownership driven environment, tracking a project against key milestones are important. But it works well when the team consists of easily interchangeable cogs.