Project Management FAQ : What is Scrum?
An agile software development methodology developed by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland in the mid 1990s. Scrum is based on a "Sprint," which is a 30-day period for delivering a working part of the system. Each Sprint starts with a two to three-hour planning session that includes the customer (product owner), the facilitator (Scrummaster) and the cross-functional team. The customer describes the highest priority in the backlog, and after the team agrees on how much of it to do, it is left alone to do it. To keep the team synchronized, there is a 15-minute meeting every day. At the end of the Sprint, the results are delivered and reviewed, and the next Sprint is started.
Scrum projects support the use of any software engineering discipline. However, since XP (Extreme Programming) and Scrum share many core practices, Scrum and XP integrate well together. The name comes from Rugby, where a scrum is the mechanism for getting the ball moving after it has gone out of play.
Characteristics of Scrum
- Scrum is an agile process to manage and control development work.
- Scrum is a wrapper for existing engineering practices.
- Scrum is a team-based approach to iteratively, incrementally develop systems and products when requirements are rapidly changing
- Scrum is a process that controls the chaos of conflicting interests and needs.
- Scrum is a way to improve communications and maximize co-operation.
- Scrum is a way to detect and cause the removal of anything that gets in the way of developing and delivering products.
- Scrum is a way to maximize productivity.
- Scrum is scalable from single projects to entire organizations. Scrum has controlled and organized development and implementation for multiple interrelated products
- and projects with over a thousand developers and implementers.
- Scrum is a way for everyone to feel good about their job, their contributions, and that they have done the very best they possibly could.