What is Scrum?

Scrum is adaptable, fast, flexible and effective agile framework or agile development methodology of rules, roles, events, and artifacts used to implement Agile projects based on an iterative and incremental approach and processes to deliver value to the customer throughout the development of the project.

Scrum Process

Scrum relies on a self-organizing, cross-functional team. The scrum team is self-organizing in that there is no overall team leader who decides which person will do which task or how a problem will be solved. Those are issues that are decided by the team as a whole.

And in Scrum, a team is cross functional, meaning everyone is needed to take a feature from idea to implementation.

Within agile development, Scrum teams are supported by two specific roles. The first is a ScrumMaster, who can be thought of as a coach for the team, helping team members use the Scrum process to perform at the highest level.

The product owner (PO) is the other role, and in Scrum software development, represents the business, customers or users, and guides the team toward building the right product.

The Scrum model suggests that projects progress via a series of sprints. In keeping with an agile methodology, sprints are timeboxed to no more than a month long, most commonly two weeks.

Scrum methodology advocates for a planning meeting at the start of the sprint, where team members figure out how many items they can commit to, and then create a sprint backlog – a list of the tasks to perform during the sprint.

During an agile Scrum sprint, the Scrum team takes a small set of features from idea to coded and tested functionality. At the end, these features are done, meaning coded, tested and integrated into the evolving product or system.

On each day of the sprint, all team members should attend a daily Scrum meeting, including the ScrumMaster and the product owner. This meeting is timeboxed to no more than 15 minutes. During that time, team members share what they worked on the prior day, will work on that day, and identify any impediments to progress.

The Scrum model sees daily scrums as a way to synchronize the work of team members as they discuss the work of the sprint.

At the end of a sprint, the team conducts a sprint review during which the team demonstrates the new functionality to the PO or any other stakeholder who wishes to provide feedback that could influence the next sprint.

This feedback loop within Scrum software development may result in changes to the freshly delivered functionality, but it may just as likely result in revising or adding items to the product backlog.

Another activity in Scrum project management is the sprint retrospective at the end of each sprint. The whole team participates in this meeting, including the ScrumMaster and PO. The meeting is an opportunity to reflect on the sprint that has ended, and identify opportunities to improve.

Scrum in Agile requires particular roles and responsibilities, including the following:

Product owner: The product owner is responsible for representing the customer’s best interest. This person has the ultimate authority over the final product. The product owner works to direct the team to the right goal. The product owner does this by creating a compelling vision of the product, and then conveying that vision to the team through the product backlog.

The product owner is responsible for prioritizing the backlog during Scrum development, to ensure it’s up to par as more is learned about the system being built, its users, the team and so on.

Scrum master: This person is a facilitator, responsible for arranging the daily meetings, improving team interactions, and maximizing productivity. The project manager often takes on the role of Scrum master, but they can delegate it to anyone on the team who is a Scrum expert and strong facilitator. ScrumMaster focuses on helping the team be the best that it can be. ScrumMaster differs from a traditional project manager in many ways, including that this role does not provide day-to-day direction to the team and does not assign tasks to individuals.

Scrum team: The scrum team is a self-organized group of three to nine individuals who have the business, design, analytical and development skills to carry out the actual work, solve problems and produce deliverable products. Members of the scrum team self-administer tasks and are jointly responsible for meeting each sprint’s goals.

Backlog: The backlog is a list of tasks and requirements included in the final product. It’s the responsibility of the product owner to create the backlog.

Sprint: A sprint is a set time frame for completing each set of tasks from the backlog. Every sprint should be the same length. Two weeks is typical, but a sprint can be anywhere between one to four weeks long, depending on the team and project’s needs. 

Sprint Planning Meeting: In these meetings, everyone participates in setting goals. At the end, at least one increment — a usable piece of software — should be produced.

Sprint Review: This is the time to show off the increment.

Daily meetings: A Scrum project team is expected to meet every day to discuss progress. These meetings are typically referred to as a Daily Scrum or Daily Stand-Up.

Retrospective: Each sprint should end with a review meeting, called a retrospective. Here, the team reviews their progress and discusses how they can improve in the next sprint.