Examples of Scrum Case Studies

[Updated February 2024]

Successful Scrum Implementations across various Industries

In my Scrum training courses, students often ask for examples of Scrum case studies. This happens consistently in classes for Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and our Advanced courses. 

In general, I believe case studies are irrelevant to learning Scrum. To truly grasp Scrum, it is best to experience it firsthand. By trying it yourself, you can then evaluate (inspect and adapt) and make necessary adjustments. This is more effective than solely relying on reading about how others have implemented it.

However, I recognize the value of seeing successful adoption when learning new skills and toolkits. Today, I decided to succumb to this request and offer up these seventeen examples for your reading pleasure.

1. Dutch Railways: this case study describes how Dutch Railways used a distributed team from the Netherlands and India to implement Scrum. It was successful after a previous project failed to deliver in three years. The case study discusses architecture, requirements, documentation, and other topics.
2. Agile Project Management at Intel – A Scrum Odyssey: is a detailed case study that describes how Intel used distributed Scrum within a traditional management culture to reduce cycle time by 66% and eliminate schedule slips within a year.
3. Scrum Boosts Effectiveness at the BBC: in this thirty-eight-minute video presentation, the Head of Development of the BBC's New Media Division discusses their multi-year journey to use Scrum effectively.
4. Owning the Sky with Agile: this case study describes the results of Jeff Sutherland's effort to help Saab Defense adopt Agile practices to develop an advanced fighter jet. While the title says "Agile, "this is a case study of Scrum's effectiveness in building mission-critical software.
5. Effects of Scrum Nine Months Later: case study author Richard Bank identifies the lasting benefits of Scrum after a disastrous, piecemeal introduction of Scrum. Be sure to read his candid assessment of how he failed.
6. Effective Practices and Federal Challenges in Applying Agile Methods: the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviews the challenges and success factors for Agile projects within the federal government based on their investigation of four successful programs.
7. Adobe Premiere Pro Scrum Adoption: in this 2012 study, Adobe explains how they used Scrum to successfully coordinate the actions of a distributed Scrum Team within an environment composed of non-Scrum Teams.
8. Mayden's Transformation from Waterfall to Scrum: the Scrum Alliance offers this short case study of how a young UK provider of cloud-based software used Scrum to break away from old habits to improve code quality and customer service.
9. Borland's Agile Journey – A Case Study in Enterprise Transformation: in this 2009 case study, the Senior Vice President of R&D at Borland talks about the benefits they received and the key lessons learned in their three-year journey to apply Scrum to their business.
10. My Experience as QA in Scrum: This is a detailed experience report of the day-to-day activities of a tester on a Scrum Team.
11. Moving Back to Scrum and Scaling to Scrum of Scrum in Less Than a Year: this fifteen-minute video presentation explains how one Brazilian company struggled with Scrum, failed, and eventually succeeded.
12. Introducing Scrum in Companies in Norway: Nordic researchers provide this case study of the factors that lead to successful Scrum adoption and which factors lead to failure and frustration. 
13. A CIO's Playbook for Adopting the Scrum Method of Achieving Software Agility: this 28-page whitepaper from 2005 describes step-by-step how Ken Schwaber envisioned a Scrum business transformation might unfold.

Qualifying for the List:

1. Do "out-of-the-box" Scrum with very few modifications.
2. Write a document or blog entry describing their experience (a PowerPoint presentation without narration does not qualify).
3. Case Study is freely available on the internet.

Additional Resources for Scrum Learning

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Editors Note: This blog was initially published in 2012 and has been revised repeatedly, republished in 2022, and most recently updated in February 2024. Do you have a case study you'd like to add?   Contact us.