Scrum for beginners

Picture credit: keijj44

Good day...

In this post I will try to share some basic knowledge on Scrum, as one of the standard methodology in Agile delivery. As a disclaimer, despite that I am a certified scrum master, I am not an expert in Agile or scrum. For a more complete reference on this topic, you might want to refer to Scrum website (www.scrum.org) or books specifically discussing this topic.

In my understanding, the following are key things that distinguish Scrum for an SDLC / waterfall project delivery:

1. The basic and foremost benefit of running Scrum project delivery is to avoid a significant rework at a later stage of a project, by applying iterative delivery and prototyping technique. The iteration is normally in two to four weeks cycle, with two weeks is found to be the most popular duration of an iteration. One cycle of iteration is called a sprint (imagine of a sprint runner in an athletic game, who will run as fast as possible to reach the finish line immediately after the start sign sign is fired).

2. The success of scrum is highly dependent to strong collaboration within the scrum team, which in IT projects normally consist of a scrum master, developers, and quality controls. In my experience in delivering a project using scrum, we had additional roles of IT Architect, business analyst and system analyst, which could actually be undertaken by the developers.

3. Related to point 2 above, to be successful it is highly recommended that the scrum team consists of dedicated resources to the project (not shared across different projects), who are co-located in the same location. This is recommended to facilitate a closer communication among team members. I experienced once delivering a project using scrum approach across different geographical location. Although the project was completed successfully, we felt that the energy and time we invested could be lessen should the team was co-located in the same physical location.

4. Scrum emphasizes on each team member taking full accountability to their own piece of work by completing the work on time. Any late delivery of a piece of work will significantly impact the ability of other team members to deliver their part. Discipline of team members to attend all scrum ceremonies on time (daily huddles / stand up meeting, retrospective sessions, sprint planning, product / prototype demo, etc).

5. The role of a scrum master is to ensure that every team member is running their role and that all ceremonies and artifact are run and delivered appropriately.

At the end, Agile and Scrum is just a methodology. The commitment and dedication of the team members is the one which determines success.