Scrum – how it all started
The term ”Scrum” dates back to 1986 where it was brought up in an article entitled The New Product Development Game by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka. Back then the word didn’t have a lot in common with the meaning of the Scrum we know today though. The word seems to be borrowed from Rugby as a means of restarting a game. It relates to the way the team works together to pass the ball down the field. That’s a great metaphor on how the Scrum Team works. ”Careful alignment, unity of purpose, and clarity of goal come together,” says Jeff Sutherland one of the Scrum framework creators.
Scrum – what is it?
Scrum is a framework, and not methodology. The Scrum Guide is only 13 pages long. The Scrum framework applied to a problem in a business setting enables us to look at the problem in a creative, imaginative manner. Scrum is not a process. The Scrum framework makes it possible for the team to create their own process their own way. It’s a way of organizing your project by providing a structure for increased efficiency and faster results. You can organize your project the way you want, as the Scrum framework doesn’t give you any detailed instructions how to run your project. All you need to do is follow a set of rules stemming from the Agile philosophy. The rules were laid out during a meeting in a ski resort in Utah in 2001. Most popular agile practitioners met there to to ski and talk about the way people work.
The Scrum framework and Agile
The meeting was attended by the representatives of Scrum, XP, DSDM, Pragmatic Programming and a couple of more. All of those were Agile techniques of software development. Scrum is the most popular Agile methodology nowadays. Those group of thinkers created the list of principles and ideas called “Agile Manifesto”. That was called so to indicate a big change in the way people work. ‘The world has changed, and so should the way people think and act,’ went their reasoning. We will talk about Agile Principles and Values in a separate post. First, let’s focus on what Scrum derives from the Agile philosophy. The most important ones are:
Empiricism in Scrum
Empiricism is a foundation Scrum is based on. Its main idea is that we acquire knowledge about the world through our senses. We experience the world with them. Hence, in Scrum we improve a process by experience. How? With the help of three pillars: transparency, inspection and adaptation.
Transparency – we know what’s going on
To put it simply, transparency means that there is good and continuous understanding between developers and the product owner. Each side knows what is expected from them, what and how work is going to be done and what the process looks like. Everything is crystal clear. Transparency also concerns the product owner and customer who collaborates with the Scrum Team all the way.
Inspection – we check our work
As opposed to traditional project models (like the Waterfall), the Scrum product is tangible all the time, as it’s delivered regularly by chunks. Thanks to Scrum meetings, called events, the product can be inspected all the time before it’s actually released. It’s possible due to the constant feedback loop from the customer. Developers meet daily (Daily Scrum) to talk about what their have achieved so far, what they have to do next and so on.
Adaptation – we make improvements
Since being agile is the ability to react to changes, this is where adaptation comes in. You review the work to see if this is something you should be doing; if it’s not, you make changes. Value goes first, and not persistent sticking to the plan.
The Scrum framework – when to use it
Scrum is very versatile, which means it may be applied in different fields and settings. It’s best to use it in a complex environment where risk is pretty high and the reality often changes, and that’s the case with software development. It can also be successfully applied in education. I use it to teach people English. The next time we will focus on the roles in Scrum.
