Hi Maarten. Well then you are either doing something right, or you have a very unusual team, or you are not really in touch with what the team is feeling - one of those three. I hope it is one of the first two possibilities!

I know that I see these patterns often. I also have found that SMs and Agile coaches often think things are great, but if you ask programmers, they tell a different story. And very often people think things are great because they have not experienced great. They just assume that the standup is a necessary thing - they have not had an experience on a great and successful team that did not do standups; or they have not experienced having a true servant leaders rather than a SM.

What I often hear is that "Scrum is relentless" and that it "burns people out". And it is clear why: it does not build into the cadence any relief from delivery pressure. It is supposed to be a "sustainable pace", but there is no such thing: if you have to work relentlessly without a break, even a slow pace will burn you out.

To make Scrum "work", people have to make all kinds of adjustments, like building in refactoring sprints to give people a break; and they say that if you are having trouble with Scrum then you "are not doing it right" - as if you are supposed to read between the lines of the Scrum Guide and somehow learn the special knowledge that is implied - kind of like a priest who studies a religious text and eventually finds enlightenment. It is BS. I feel that the Scrum process is trivial, and does not address most of the real challenges of software development - and that the Scrum process locks people in to a set of practices that often are not the best fit for the situation.

But if it works for your situation, then it is right for you! I suspect that it works because you are astute and are adding additional practices, and exerting leadership of the right kind. Perhaps it works because of you and your good leadership skills - not because of Scrum.