There are a lot of times when people use the terms Agile and Scrum interchangeably, which should not be the case. Even though Agile and Scrum serve the same purpose for companies, they are not necessarily the same.
It would be like comparing water to ice. To help you understand the differences between them, we have brought this ‘Agile vs Scrum’ article.
When it comes to Agile, it is a set of principles and guidelines that organizations follow, which use an iterative approach to help them with software development.
Scrum, on the other hand, is a list of rules that companies and team members follow as a part of their Agile software development process.
For example, in a survey of 101,592 software developers, it was found that 85.9% of them used Agile in their work, but this does not mean that they used the Scrum techniques and principles.
To put it simply, all teams that implement Scrum techniques and principles are Agile, but not all Agile teams implement Scrum.
To better understand Agile and Scrum methodologies, let us understand how each methodology works.
What is Agile?
When software development teams claim that they are Agile, they mean that they have put a lot of development methodologies to use that use a very iterative development process. This only works in an incremental manner.
The Agile methodology creates an environment for employees that focuses on constantly evolving based on the changing requirements and needs of the customer. This evolution is successfully brought about by collaborating within self-organizing teams as well as with cross-functional teams.
The Agile method creates a more disciplined approach to project management. Teams use a set of best practices to achieve their goals in the shortest amount of time possible. This helps teams deliver software of high quality.
It improves the way businesses approach and completes their projects because it helps development teams align their objectives and outcome of the project with the customer’s needs.
The Agile way is a big shift from the traditional waterfall method because, in the traditional way, all the business or project requirements have to first be analyzed and documented by members at higher levels before starting the development.
Here, with the Agile methodology, the requirements are not set in stone and evolve with each iteration, creating quite a lot of flexibility and room for growth during the software development cycle.
What is Scrum?
Scrum is a part of the Agile methodology. Here Scrum Teams work in increments known as sprints. Each sprint lasts between two or three weeks where they create a deliverable product.
The following sprints are focused on implementing feedback from the previous sprint and adding functionalities to the product to make it more consumer-friendly.
Scrum teams meet daily to discuss the progress of the project during a sprint. Before the sprint begins, the team gets together to create a roadmap and timeline for the sprint. After the sprint is complete, the product and the sprint are reviewed and analyzed.
This means that it ultimately follows the same set of guiding principles, but it is more refined. Scrum is the most popular subset of the Agile method. It is also a flexible method used for software development.
It is not a set technique or process that can be implemented easily. It is a framework that can be adapted to suit each individual company’s or team’s needs so that they can address problems well and deliver a product of high quality.
Scrum is an extremely popular Agile methodology. A recent survey conducted with more than 2,000 participants found that out of all the IT teams that used Scrum, 97% of them were very happy with their project success rate and will continue to use Scrum methods in the future.
What makes Scrum different from Agile?
The software development process in Scrum is done in sprints that can last for one, two, or even three weeks at most. It is done by a Scrum Team, which is made up of the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the Development Team.
The Product Owner takes over the biggest role of maximizing the value created from the product built by the Development Team. The Scrum Master is responsible for making sure that all the rules, theories, and practices of the Scrum framework are being followed by the Scrum Team.
Finally, the Development Team is made up of a few self-organizing professionals who are in charge of creating product increments with each sprint or iteration.
Agile vs Scrum: What are the Differences?
Agile is a total methodology used by developers that are founded on using an iterative and incremental approach to software development, whereas Scrum is a part of Agile, a type where companies and teams can implement Agile principles in their workflow. With Scrum, incremental builds take place quite often, between one and three weeks.
Let’s dive into other noteworthy differences between agile and scrum!
1. Nature & Scope
Agile:
Agile is a collection of methods and practices based on the values and principles expressed in the Agile Manifesto, such as collaboration, self-organization, and cross-functionality of teams. Agile works by breaking projects down into chunks of user functionality called user stories, prioritizing them, and delivering them in short two-week cycles called iterations.
It is an empowering process that assists companies design and build the right product. The management process is extremely beneficial for software companies because it helps them analyze and develop their product throughout their development.
This empowers companies to produce a highly valuable product to stay competitive in the market.
Scrum:
Scrum is a framework for managing roles, events, artifacts, and rules to implement the Agile Mindset. It is a more polished form of agile that takes its core principles while adding a twist to formulate a much more different strategy.
The main goal of scrum is to satisfy the customer’s demand through an environment of transparency in communication, collective responsibility, and continuous progress. Therefore, the development begins from a general concept of what needs to be built, elaborating a list of characteristics ordered by priority (product backlog) that the product owner wants to obtain.
2. Planning
Agile Planning
Agile planning is a project management style with an incremental, iterative approach. Instead of using an in-depth plan from the start of the project, typically product-related, Agile allows for changes in requirements during the process and relies on continual feedback from end-users. Overwhelmingly, the world is going agile – a whopping 71% of organizations have adopted agile planning methodologies, and 60% of those companies increased their profits after doing so. In agile, planning occurs at three levels:
Release Planning:
The release is a sequence of product increments released to the customer in the Agile landscape. The release plan specifies the amount of work your team will complete by the specified deadline. The scrum master (who facilitates the meeting), the product owner (who shares the product backlog view), the agile team (who gives insights into technical dependencies and feasibility), and the stakeholders collaborate on release preparation (the trusted advisors).
Iteration Planning:
The iteration planning is done by conducting a meeting where all the team members determine the number of backlog items they can deliver during the next iteration. Then, the commitment is made according to the velocity and iteration timeline of the team.
Daily Commitment Planning:
Like many other planning tasks for agile management, daily commitment planning also requires the synchronized partnership of teams. The daily planning meeting focus on completing the top-priority features. The 15-minute standup meeting facilitates face-to-face communication on an individual’s progress and impediments, if any.
Scrum Planning
Scrum planning is conducted before the start of a sprint. The purpose of this is to determine the sprint plan and set a sprint goal. It includes agreeing on the number of backlog items in the sprint that is the development team’s responsibility and defining the objective for the current sprint and sprint backlog. The product owner describes the most important features to the entire team during the scrum planning. In scrum, planning occurs at three levels:
Release Planning:
Release planning is about making incremental deliveries’ scope, date, and budget trade-offs. The main purpose of release planning is to determine the next logical step in achieving a product goal. Many organizations implementing Scrum create a preliminary release plan through initial release planning. The initial release planning can take a day or 2-days. However, this timing may vary depending on the size of the release and the team members’ knowledge of the concepts.
Sprint Planning:
Sprint planning is a process in the scrum framework where the team decides the product backlog items they’ll work on during that sprint and outlines their initial plan for completing them. Establishing a sprint goal and using that as the foundation for determining which product backlog items to concentrate on during that sprint may benefit teams.
Daily Scrum:
The team holds a daily scrum meeting dubbed the “daily scrum” on each day of a sprint in Scrum. Ideally, a daily scrum meeting should be held in the morning to help establish the tone for the day’s work. The duration of these scrum meetings is strictly limited to 15 minutes. The daily scrum meeting does not serve as a forum for problem-solving or issue resolution. Instead, issues made are taken offline and dealt with by the appropriate subgroup immediately following the meeting. Each team member answers the following three questions at the daily scrum:
- What did you do yesterday?
- What are your plans for today?
- Are there any roadblocks in your path?
3. Flexibility to Changes
Agile:
It is a rigid framework & there is not much room for frequent changes. However, some practices allow baking flexibility into the agile app development process. These practices assist with time, scope, budget management, and rapid adaptability to changing needs. Ultimately, flexibility is at the ground of a genuinely agile development methodology. Identifying where your flexibility lies, including it in your project plan, and building it into the agile development process will help you to adapt to changes and still have the ability to deliver a successful product.
Scrum:
It is incredibly flexible and hence adapts to changes very quickly. As a result, it enables companies and organizations to be more flexible and open to change. Scrum facilitates flexibility by transparency, inspection, and adaptation to get the most valuable business outcomes. In addition, Scrum provides an adaptive mechanism for project delivery in which a change in requirements can be accommodated without significantly impacting overall project progress.
4. Values
Agile Values:
Agile Values is a set of 4 values outlined by the Agile Alliance in the Agile Manifesto. This set of values promotes putting people before processes, getting software out the door fast, collaborating with customers, and adjusting plans as needed. Each Agile methodology applies the four values in various ways, but all depend on them to guide high-quality, working software development and conveyance. The core values of Agile Manifesto are:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
The primary value in the Agile Manifesto is “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.” Valuing individuals more highly than processes or tools is simple to understand because it is the individual who responds to business requirements and drives the development process. Communication is an illustration of the difference between valuing individuals versus processes. In the case of individuals, communication is flexible and happens when a requirement emerges. In the case of a process, communication is scheduled and requires specific content.
Working software over exhaustive documentation
Historically, enormous amounts of time were spent documenting the product for development and ultimate delivery. As a result, a lot of documentation must be done before building the software. For example, each project requires technical specifications, requirements, prospectus, interface design documents, test plans, documentation plans, and approvals. Agile does not eliminate documentation, but it simplifies it to provide the developer with what is required to do the work without getting hindered in detail.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
In the traditional software development technique, the customer involves only at the beginning of the project for contract negotiation. Negotiation occurs when the customer and the product manager work out the conveyance details, with points along the path where the details may be renegotiated. Collaboration is a variety of creatures entirely. With development models like Waterfall, customers negotiate the requirements for the product, often in great detail, before any work starts.
Responding to change over following a plan
Changes are inescapable in a software development process. A well-designed project plan must be adaptable enough to incorporate the change made per the situation. The conventional thought process is that the changes are expensive, and we should avoid changes at all costs. The unnecessary emphasis focuses on documentation and elaborate plans to deliver by sticking to the timelines and product specifications.
Scrum Values:
Scrum is built on fundamental values, providing a code of ethics and behavior guidelines for scrum teams. It provides teams the rules of conduct to embody and live by when using scrum. In addition, scrum values help each member determine how to deliver the contribution with an eye toward the team’s long-term health. Following are the values of scrum:
Commitment:
Scrum teams must dedicate themselves to progress and set and keep to concrete goals. This is a team operation where you are a group member and are responsible for working together and adhering to your commitments.
Focus:
An iterative-incremental approach and on-time delivery in Scrum helps to keep us focused on the project goal. Once the requirements are clear and the target is set, the most effective way to achieve the goal is to be goal-oriented. This encourages you to deliver faster, better, and high-yielding results. In addition, you can prevent wasting resources and deliver on time by focusing more on a goal.
Openness:
Scrum team members and project stakeholders must maintain open and honest lines of communication. Each side needs to practice complete disclosure when discussing the required workload and its challenges. This transparency fosters trust among all parties.
This value likewise entails being open to change. Changes happen quickly as new technologies are introduced in the digital age, and old orthodoxies are discarded instead of new approaches. Scrum team members must be willing to accept these adjustments.
Respect:
Scrum team members should respect each other, including each member’s opinions, experience, and culture. Mutual respect builds the bonds between scrum team members and improves the team’s effectiveness. However, members must also extend that respect beyond the team’s barriers to the users, listening to their concerns and ensuring that the finished product meets their requirements.
Courage:
Team members should have the courage to tackle challenging, intimidating problems and do the right thing. It’s simple to take the safe side and avoid risks. Unfortunately, a team that lacks confidence won’t be innovative, creative, or productive. Scrum team members must have a strong backbone and not falter in the face of difficult challenges. This courage also extends to embracing scrum methodology and enacting its values, even when faced with skeptics or detractors.
Also read: How To Apply Scrum Values In Our Day-To-Day Worklife?
5. Principles
Agile Principles
The Agile methodology has become a typical method of project management. It is based on 12 principles developed in 2001 by software developers. The Manifesto outlined a set of key principles designed to ensure companies prioritize the right things, namely: customer satisfaction, collaboration, adapting to change, etc. Following are the principles of agile development:
Fulfill Customers Through Early & Continuous Delivery
Customers are happier when receiving working software at regular intervals rather than waiting extended periods between releases. By reducing the time between documenting the project, reporting to your customer, and receiving feedback, you can focus on the project’s real goal: delivering what the customer wants, not what you planned. To keep the customers cheerful, it’s important to engage them with a working version of the product continuously. Show slight increments every sprint planning and make changes as required.
Welcome Changing Requirements Even if it’s Late in the project
The capability to avoid delays when a requirement or feature request changes. Dealing with a huge and complex task would be time and energy-consuming while managing project tasks. A better approach is to divide the task into smaller chunks that can easily complete. The customers would constantly be kept in the loop, and it would be easier for the team members to recognize potential bottlenecks and handle any potential delays.
Convey Value Frequently
The Agile philosophy supports a smaller time frame and delivers working software frequently. This iterative process requires team members to improve their performance continuously. Scrum incorporates this principle since the team operates in software sprints or iterations, ensuring that working software delivers frequently.
Collaboration between the business stakeholders and developers throughout the project
Better choices are made when the business and technical team are aligned. A major problem with traditional project management methodologies is that the project stakeholders are often oblivious to the project’s development stages. The Agile principles urge all stakeholders to remain involved in all project stages to ensure constant feedback and a valuable end product.
Build Projects Around Motivated Individuals
Motivated teams are bound to deliver their best work than unhappy teams. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the project manager to create a motivating environment and support where team members are not frightened to express their opinions and give suggestions to improve the team’s performance. Giving the team members confidence and motivating them will improve their overall performance, ultimately improving the project.
The Most Effective Way of Communication is Face-to-Face
Communication is more effective when development teams are co-located. In the Agile Manifesto, much importance is given to effective communication between the involved parties. Strategies like memos and email are not preferred for effective communication, and more significance is given to face-to-face communication. This is currently easier because of the advances in communication technologies. For example, all stakeholders can now have a meeting through video conferencing rather than coming to the office for a short meeting.
Working Software is the Major Measure of Progress
Delivering functional software to the customer is the eventual factor that measures progress. The only factor in measuring success is delivering a working product that satisfies the customer. Before Agile, there were several measures of success, resulting in a drop in the quality of the final product.
Maintain a Sustainable Working Pace
Teams establish a repeatable and viable speed at which they can deliver working software and repeat it with each release. A repeatable and iterative pattern should be well-built where sustainable project development occurs consistently. This keeps the team members from being overwhelming and anxious while the project progresses at an acceptable rate.
Continuous Excellence Enhances Agility
The right skills and design ensure that the team maintains the pace, constantly improves the product, and sustains change. In addition, providing value to the customer is the primary objective of any Agile team. Therefore, it’s extremely important to have a multi-skilled team that can handle all the project’s technical aspects and provides continuous improvement.
Simplicity is Crucial
In each time box, the tasks that need to be done should be the primary focus of all team members. Too much planning and adding extra features to the product should avoid during the development. Agile is about keeping processes basic and streamlining the entire cycle, and the Agile principles assist with keeping that on track. Even minor distractions or unnecessary tasks can slow progress. Embrace automation tools whenever possible.
Self-Coordinating Teams Generate Most Value
A self-organized team with decision-making powers would perform better because satisfying the customers will depend on the team members rather than an individual project manager. Skilled and motivated team members have decision-making power, take ownership, communicate regularly with other team members, and share ideas that deliver quality products.
Routinely Reflect and Adjust Your Way of Work to Improve Effectiveness
Agile methodologies are built on the concept of iteration, where teams learn from their past mistakes and continuously improve their performance. Project managers should promote sessions where the entire team reflects on their performance and discuss ways to improve their technical and management skills. Self-improvement, process improvement, advancing skills and techniques assist team members to work more efficiently.
Scrum Principles
Scrum principles are the underlying foundation for the agile scrum framework. When incorporated with the agile core values, the scrum principles help to improve transparency and adaptation in project management. Furthermore, keeping the principles intact and using them appropriately instills confidence in the scrum framework concerning attaining the project’s objectives. Following are the six principles of scrum:
Empirical process control
Rather than depending on a detailed, upfront plan, scrum decisions are based on experimentation and observation. There are three fundamental ideas of empirical process control:
- Transparency
- Inspection
- Adaptation
Self-organization
Self-organization is critical in the scrum process because it relies on many individuals. Everyone participating is given the freedom to work freely, and the self-organization principle allows for more buy-in from all stakeholders while also making individual contributions easier to evaluate. An independent scrum team means a better buy-in and shared ownership. In addition, this principle fosters a creative and innovative environment that promotes growth.
Collaboration
The three essential components of the collaboration principle are awareness, articulation, and appropriation. This principle also defines project management as a collaborative value-creation process where teams collaborate and interact to get the greatest outcomes.
Value-based prioritization
The Scrum team must prioritize tasks based on their importance and value to end-users and company goals. This prioritization is a continually dynamic process that starts at the beginning of the project and continues until its successful completion.
Time-boxing
Time is a finite, precious resource. The time-boxing principle schedules and allocates particular time for the different activities. Time allocation assists in managing the planning and execution of the project more effectively. The time-boxed features of scrum include:
- Sprints: (work-related release cycles range from 2-4 weeks long)
- Sprint planning meetings: (1-2 hours for task assurance)
- Daily standup meetings: (around 15 minutes long for task discussion and monitoring)
- Sprint review meetings: (a 1–2-hour evaluation of activities and release cycles)
- Iterative development
Scrum project requirements constantly evolve and require regular revision and adjustment. This principle focuses on managing these changes more productively and effectively, resulting in products that fully satisfy the customer’s requirements. Consequently, the software development tasks in the scrum framework must be repeated, revisited, and reworked.
6. Roles & Responsibilities
Roles & Responsibilities of Agile
Following are the fundamental roles and responsibilities of agile teams:
Product Owner
The product owner handles the stakeholders of the project. The main responsibility of the product owner is to set the direction for product development or project progress. The Product Owner understands the project’s requirements from a stakeholder perspective and has the essential soft skills to communicate the necessities to the product development team.
Team Lead/Scrum Master
The Team Lead/Scrum Master ensures team coordination and supports the project’s progress between individual team members. In addition, the scrum master takes the instructions from the Product Owner and ensures that the tasks are performed accordingly. The role is also responsible for managing external coordination with the organization and the product owner to ensure the successful execution of the scrum framework.
Development Team Members
The development team members are involved with individuals with responsibilities including but not limited to product development. The team assumes cross-functional tasks to turn an idea or a requirement into a usable product for end-users. The development team’s main responsibilities are to complete work sprints according to the Product Owner’s requirements, which the Scrum Master coordinates. Moreover, the daily scrum is a regular standup meeting to convey project progress to colleagues and the scrum master.
Stakeholders
The Stakeholder position is not directly involved in the product development process. Still, it is used to represent a range of fundamental roles that impact the decisions and work of the scrum team. Input from the stakeholders is critical to direct the project’s progress in different directions to align product development with business goals, end-user expectations and address challenges facing the scrum development team.
Additional roles for larger Scrum projects
In addition to these typical scrum team roles, large organizations working on large projects may include more scrum teams. These can include the following:
- Technical and domain professionals with the knowledge of technology and a wide variety of stakeholder requirements or expectations
- An independent testing and audit team may join the scrum team members and work throughout the product development lifecycle
- An Integrator may require large teams that work on independent but closely coordinated subsystems for a project. The responsibility for the integrator would include the integration of the subsystems and testing that external testing teams may perform.
- An Architect Owner might require architectural envisioning, planning, and decision making
Roles & Responsibilities of Scrum
Scrum has three roles:
Scrum Master
A scrum master is an individual responsible for ensuring that a scrum team is operating as efficiently as possible while complying with scrum values. This entails keeping the team on track, planning and leading meetings, and resolving team issues. In addition, scrum masters may play a broader role within a business, assisting in implementing scrum concepts.
Product Owner
A product owner ensures that the scrum team aligns with the targets of the overall product that the team is contributing. In addition, they understand the product’s business requirements, like customer expectations and market trends. Finally, product owners generally communicate with product managers and other stakeholders outside the scrum team to understand how the Scrum team fits into larger goals.
Development Team Members
The development team is liable for completing the project work. They collaborate to figure out how to achieve their objectives. The product owner sets priorities while the scrum master monitors work. Scrum development teams self-manage and rely on strong bonds, empowerment, and a positive work environment.
7. Mode of Communication:
Face-to-face conversations are the backbone and soul of agile projects. Agile meetings provide a format for communicating in a face-to-face environment. Meetings on agile projects have a specific objective and time for the development team to work rather than meetings.
Communication is done on a daily/weekly basis concerning the schedule. Whiteboards, sticky notes, and electronic collaboration tools help the scrum team communicate. Ensure that these tools augment, rather than replace, face-to-face conversations.
8. Estimation time and delivery
In agile, the priority is always to satisfy the customer by providing continuous delivery of valuable software. Traditional software teams provide estimates in a time format: days, weeks, months. On the other hand, several agile teams have transitioned to story points.
Story points are units of measurement for estimating the entire effort required to fully execute a product backlog item or any other piece of work. Agile estimation in the initial stages can assist with accurate user story estimations and help the team stick to timely deliverables.
After each sprint, Scrum distributes builds to clients for feedback. In Scrum Projects, estimation is done by the whole team during a sprint planning meeting. The main objective of the estimation would be to consider the user stories for the sprint by priority and by the team’s capability to deliver during the Time Box of the Sprint.
The most commonly used and famous technique is Planning Poker based on the Fibonacci sequence. Scrum considers delivery to be releasable software by the end of a sprint.
9. Customer Feedback
Agile encourages constant feedback during various processes from business users. Gathering, documenting, and prioritizing customer feedback is a three-step process in agile development. Developing a product that your customer values is pretty much the bread and butter of agile project management.
To accomplish this, you need to be sharing project progression and prototypes with your stakeholders at every iteration of your project. Whether you’re creating ground-breaking software for digital natives or a new CRM for your client’s operations team, accessibility and feature requirements will vary greatly.
As a result, you must discuss new features with your customers throughout your project, preferably after each Sprint, to assess whether:
- Features are actively giving value and not simply complicating the product
- Features are usable in terms of design and functionality for your stakeholders and, crucially, your end-users
By inviting this customer feedback before the final product launches, your team can save time and money, pushing unnecessary features forward.
The customer feedback collection should integrate at every project sprint in the scrum, alongside stakeholder feedback. For example, in a scrum, the product owner keeps a bird’s-eye view of the project and meets daily with the development team and scrum master to share customer feedback and insight. Customer feedback, alongside stakeholder goals and requirements, will then form each project sprint.
When it comes to usage, Agile can be used for virtually any business environment that has a small team of experts, whereas the Scrum method is more specifically created for an environment where the requirements keep changing at a fast rate. To create an effective Agile environment, there has to be a strong sense of leadership to direct the change, whereas when it comes to Scrum, the main focus is on creating a self-organizing, cross-functional team instead.
Since the Scrum sprints happen very frequently, it can be considered to be a more flexible type of Agile methodology. The short duration of the sprints makes it more flexible and responsive when it comes to changes. Agile teams need to have constant collaboration and face-to-face interactions whereas the Scrum interactions take place at a daily stand-up every morning with the Scrum Team.
The principles of Agile and Scrum might be similar, but they are not the same. Agile principles focus more on accepting changing requirements at all stages in the development process and working throughout, on a daily basis, until the project is complete. Its main focus is to develop to achieve technical excellence and the team is required to adjust and adapt their behavior depending on project requirements.
The Scrum principles are focused more on self-organization to create shared ownership within the team, creating an environment that supports and encourages growth and creativity. It also focuses on collaborating with the rest of the team by creating awareness about the progress of the project to create the highest value.
Another important principle of Scrum is time constraint. The Scrum Teams work in extremely short sprints to maximize their value from each sprint. Just like Agile, the Scrum process is also an iterative one, the only difference is that the cycles repeat a lot more frequently with Scrum.
Agile vs Scrum: What are the Similarities?
Apart from differences, it is almost rare to find any similarities between agile and scrum because agile and Scrum are meant to have differences between them. Agile and Scrum are both created to convey the exact idea. That is giving accurate consumer understanding in the software development rotation. This implies that scrum will include similar processes to Agile. But the agile approach might not share a few similar aspects with the scrum methodology. 81% of leaders are using scrum with other various agile methods. Both agile and scrum share many similarities as ultimately Scrum springs from Agile. Agile and Scrum rely on delivering working software frequently while embracing change and receiving continuous feedback.
Next will move towards the next topic, which is an agile framework.
Agile Framework
Agile is a software development methodology that emphasizes quickly and frequently to satisfy consumers. As a result, an agile framework characterizes as a software development methodology based on the agile philosophy integrated with the Agile Manifesto. Agile frameworks incorporate continuous planning, testing, integration, and other forms of continuous development. Following are the different agile frameworks:
1. Extreme Programming (XP)
Extreme Programming is a software development intended to improve quality and responsiveness to evolving customer requirements. As with most frameworks, communication and teamwork prioritize, but XP emphasizes shares workspaces. Code refactoring and pair programming are fundamental elements of this Framework. XP is less controlled than many Agile frameworks and follows a set of values rather than steps. The core values of XP include:
- Simplicity
- Communication
- Consistent feedback
- Respect
Extreme Programming requires developers to first plan and understand the customer’s user stories—their informal descriptions of features and feature requirements.
2. Feature-driven development (FDD)
Feature-driven development blends the benefits of agile methodologies with model-driven approaches and aims to scale up from small development teams to larger projects. Following are the five stages of work FFD has, including:
- Development
- Listing
- Planning
- Designing, and
- Building
3. Adaptive Software Development (ASD)
Adaptive Software Development is an approach to building complex software and systems. Based on rapid action development, ASD focuses on the end-user of a product or software and aims to promote constant communication and transparency between the customer and the development team. In conclusion, ASD “life cycle” incorporates three phases, namely:
- Speculation
- Collaboration
- Learning
4. Dynamic Systems Development Method (DDSM)
DSDM is an agile software development methodology. It is an iterative, incremental approach largely based on the Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology. This Agile project delivery framework utilize for developing software and non-IT solutions. It addresses the common failures of IT projects, such as going over budget, missing deadlines, and lack of user involvement. The eight principles of DSDM are as follows:
- Focus on the business need
- Deliver on time
- Collaborate
- Never compromise quality
- Build incrementally from firm foundations
- Develop iteratively
- Communicate continuously and clearly
- Exhibit control
5. Lean Software Development (LSD)
Lean Software Development applies lean manufacturing principles and leans IT to software development. The strategy is also known as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) strategy. These ways of thinking are very much alike since both intend to speed up development by focusing on new deliverables. Seven principles can characterize it:
- Eliminating the waste
- Fast Delivery
- Amplify Learning
- Builds Quality
- Respect Teamwork
- Delay the commitment
- Optimizing the whole system
6. Kanban
Kanban methodology is an agile method that targets continuous improvement, flexibility in task management, and improved workflow. With this illustrative technique, the entire project’s progress can be easily understood at a glance. In addition, Kanban is used in manufacturing settings to control inventory throughout the supply chain, utilizing a practice known as just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing. In software development, the Kanban methodology adapts the same principle by ensuring that the amount of required work is equal to the work capabilities of the team. The following are the principles of Kanban:
- Visualize the workflow
- Limit work in progress
- Manage and enhance the flow
- Make policies explicit
- Continuously improve
Also read: Agile vs Kanban: Understanding Differences and Similarities
7. Crystal Clear
Crystal Clear is a methodology that belongs to the crystal family. Its aim is at six to eight developers and focuses on people rather than processes or objects. In addition, Crystal Clear necessitates the delivery of usable code to users regularly and reflective improvement and osmotic communication, all of which should co-locate.
8. Scrum
Scrum is one of the most famous ways to implement agile. It is an iterative software model that adheres to a set of roles, responsibilities, and meetings that never change. Sprints, generally lasting one to two weeks, allow the team to deploy software regularly.
When should you use Agile?
Agile is a good fit for ongoing projects where key details aren’t obvious right away. Agile is ideal for companies that deal with frequent or unforeseen changes and teams developing new products. On the other hand, more traditional project management styles such as Waterfall might work better for projects with strict constraints—like a firm time or fixed budget—such as event planning.
When should you use Scrum?
Scrum is outstanding for dealing with complex projects in changing environments. Like many Agile methodologies, Scrum is good for constantly fluxing industries or pioneering new projects. However, a more traditional approach may be better if you’re dealing with fixed requirements or an organization that doesn’t allow smooth cross-functional collaboration.
Now, we’ll discuss the scrum framework.
Scrum Framework
Scrum Framework is a popular agile methodology to ensure that all the projects are completed on time and the result is of the highest value. The scrum framework is based on the following values:
- Commitment
- Openness
- Courage
- Respect
- Focus
The Scrum framework consists of the Scrum teams with associated Scrum Roles, Scrum Events, Scrum Artifacts, and Scrum rules. Each component within a Scrum framework has specific grounds and is a key factor to Scrum’s success. In contrast, the Scrum rules tie the ceremonies, roles, and artifacts together to govern their relationships.
Also read: Benefits Of Using Scrum Framework
Scrum Roles
A Scrum team consists of three specific roles: the Scrum Master, the product owner, and the development team members. While there is just one scrum master and one product owner, several development team members are generally there. In addition, scrum teams are minimal; the Scrum Guide recommends ten or fewer total members to optimize communication and productivity.
1. Scrum Master
The Scrum Master assists the product team in learning and implementing Scrum to generate business value. Moreover, the Scrum Master does everything in their power to ensure the success of the team, product owner, and company.
2. Product Owner
The Product Owner is responsible for optimizing return on investment (ROI) by discovering product features, translating these into a prioritized list, selecting which should be at the top of the list for the next sprint, and continually reprioritizing and refining the list.
3. Development Team
A Development Team is a set of individuals working together to develop and deliver the specified and committed product increments. It involves cross-functional members who are capable of achieving the sprint goals. In addition, this could include software engineers, architects, programmers, analysts, system admins, QA experts, testers, UI designers, etc.
Scrum Events
Scrum has a set of prescribed events, each serving a specific purpose. These events aim to reduce the need for other events. Following are the five main scrum events:
- The Sprint
- Sprint Planning
- Daily Scrum
- Sprint Review
- Sprint Retrospective
1. The Sprint
During a Sprint, a working product increment is created. It is generally two weeks or one month, and this duration is consistent across the sprints in the project. We cannot have varying durations for the various sprints in a project. Newsprint begins immediately after the conclusion of the preceding sprint.
The Sprint Goal is a sprint-specific target. First, it explains why the increment is being built for the team. Then, during the sprint planning meeting, it is built. Finally, as new information about the requirements becomes available, the sprint’s scope is clarified and renegotiated between the product owner and the team. Thus, each sprint relates to it, defining what needs to be built, a design, the flexible strategy that will guide building it, the development work, and the resultant product increment.
2. Sprint Planning
Before each sprint, the product owner offers the top items on the backlog to the team in a sprint planning meeting. The team then decides which work they can complete during the sprint and moves it from the product backlog to the sprint backlog.
3. Daily Scrum Meetings
The Daily Scrum Meeting is a 15-minute team meeting held every day to quickly comprehend the work since the previous daily scrum meeting and build a plan for the following 24 hours. This meeting is also referred to as the daily stand-up meeting. Daily Scrum Meeting is held simultaneously and in the same place every day to reduce complexity.
4. Sprint Review
Each sprint concludes with a Sprint Review. During the sprint review, a presentation of the increment that is getting released is reviewed. The scrum team and stakeholders interact in this meeting to understand what accomplish throughout the sprint. The attendees arrive at the next actions required to optimize value and any modifications to the product backlog during the sprint. As a result, the sprint review’s goal is to gather feedback and make progress as a team. The sprint review usually lasts two hours for two-week sprints, while it lasts four hours for one-month sprints.
5. Sprint Retrospective
The Sprint Retrospective occurs after the sprint review and before the next sprint planning. This is usually a one-hour meeting for two-week sprints and a three-hour meeting for one-month duration Sprints. The objective of the sprint retrospective is to:
- Combine the learnings from the last sprint with regard to people, relationships, processes, and tools
- Identify the primary items that went well and potential improvements
- Creation of a plan for implementing improvements to increase product quality
The Sprint Retrospective allows the scrum team to introspect and improve within the scrum process framework to make the next Sprint result more effective.
Scrum Artifacts
Scrum artifacts represent work or value to promote transparency and opportunities for inspection and adaptation. Artifacts defined by scrum are specially designed to maximize the transparency of critical information so that everybody understands the artifact. Scrum uses three artifacts to help manage work.
1. Product Backlog
A product backlog is a thorough list of all the elements in the product and a dynamic and well-understood requirement for any product adjustments. For example, the Product Owner’s (PO) product backlog lists all features, functions, requirements, enhancements, and fixes that constitute the changes to the product in future releases.
2. Sprint Backlog
The Sprint Backlog consists of the product backlog items selected for the sprint plus a strategy for delivering the product increment and realizing the sprint goal. It is a foreseen by the development team regarding what functionality will be in the upcoming increment and the work required to deliver that functionality. In addition, the Sprint Backlog defines the Development Team’s work to turn Product Backlog items into a “Done” Increment. Finally, the Sprint Backlog makes all of the work that the Development Team identifies as necessary to meet the Sprint Goal.
3. Increment
The increment is the sum of all Product Backlog items completed during a Sprint and preceding Sprints. The latest increment must be “Done” at the end of a Sprint, which means:
- It must fulfill the Scrum Team’s Definition of “Done.”
- It must be in usable form regardless of whether the product owner decides to release it
Scrum Rules
Scrum uses an incremental & iterative approach so that the predictability is optimized & risk is controlled. The following are three pillars that uphold every implementation of scrum process control:
1. Transparency
Scrum promotes transparency as it requires significant aspects of the process to be visible to those responsible for the outcome. A common standard defines these aspects so observers can share a common understanding of what is being seen.
2. Inspection
Scrum artifacts frequently inspect and progress toward detecting undesirable variances. However, the inspection frequency should not be such that the inspection gets in the way of the work. Inspections are most effective when consistently performed by skilled inspectors at the point of work.
3. Adaption
Suppose an inspector determines that one or more components of a process depart outside acceptable barriers and that the resulting output will be unacceptable. In that case, the process or material must adjust. An adjustment must be made as early as possible to minimize further deviation.
In the next segment will discuss the pros and cons of agile and scrum.
Pros and Cons of Agile
Pros of Agile
More Flexible
Agile is more flexible, adapting to changes more rapidly than other project management approaches. For example, a customer can add, delete or change requirements or shift priorities at the beginning of each cycle, guiding the project team on the work for the next iteration.
Faster, high-quality delivery
Breaking down the project into iterations empowers the team to focus on high-quality development, testing, and collaboration. Therefore, testing at each iteration allows for faster detection and correction of mistakes, and high-quality software may quickly provide consistent, successive iterations.
Good Communication
Agile highlights the importance of constant communication and face-to-face interactions. Teams work together, and people can take responsibility and own parts of the projects.
Continuous improvement
Agile projects enable feedback from users and team members throughout the project, so lessons are learned to improve future iterations.
Immediate Feedback
For some agile methodologies, including scrum, development is usually in cycles, every cycle providing a module in its ready launch state. This ready-launch state achieves through constant testing and feedback from customers and stakeholders.
Fewer Defective Products
A primary advantage of agile methodology is that the end product is usually efficient and robust compared to other development methodologies. The effort put into developing, implementing, testing, and providing feedback contributes to this robustness.
Cons of Agile
Planning Might Be More Amorphous
It can be hard to pinpoint a specific delivery date. Because Agile is built on time-boxed delivery and project managers frequently reprioritize work, some items that were scheduled for delivery may not be completed on time. Additional sprints introduce during the project, lengthening the overall schedule.
Lack of Documentation
The lack of documentation during the development process is maybe the major downside of the agile development technique. This is frequently due to the project’s ever-changing scope in terms of requirements and problem definition. As a result, documentation of a particular module could render obsolete due to both major and minor changes made to it.
Fragmented Output
Incremental delivery might help bring products to market faster, but the agile methodology is also a big disadvantage. That’s because when teams work on each component in different cycles, the complete output often becomes very fragmented rather than one cohesive unit.
Time
Agile approaches invest a lot of time in projects as a whole and their modules. However, the overall cycle of definition, development, testing, feedback, and refactoring is cumbersome and requires time and abundant resources.
Lack of Predictability
While the uncertainty of the future provides an excellent learning entity for each team group or member, it can also be stressful to provide solutions for the public. As a result, some may opt out of projects because clients, stakeholders, and even developers are unsure of different production decisions. This can become troublesome, especially when these entities choose to leave at crucial stages of production.
Pros and Cons of Scrum
Pros of Scrum
Adaptability and Flexibility
The Scrum framework is one of the most flexible frameworks, always ready for changes and can adapt to any situation.
Innovation and Creativity
When there is a competitive world, the best company that brings out the most innovative products according to the customer’s needs survives.
Lower Costs
The scrum approach decreases the cost by reducing the documentation and controls that aren’t significant, thus lowering overhead costs. It likewise leads to increased productivity from the scrum team.
Creates Transparency
The scrum approach ensures that employees complete their tasks on time and that the organization and its clients are transparent. Every member can see a little change in any component of the project. Moreover, transparency breeds trust, which leads to greater business for the company.
Better Quality
Quality has always been the major priority in scrum as the products developed using the scrum framework display high value. In addition, the Scrum team’s developers take full ownership of the product they’re working on and operate as a self-organizing team.
Customer Satisfaction
Scrum involves customers throughout product development, resulting in greater product quality and end-user satisfaction. Therefore, the product increments added to the product are based on the users’ feedback. This makes a high chance that the end version of the delivered product is accepted by the customers, satisfying them.
Cons of Scrum
Doesn’t Bother About the Project Deadline
Scrum methodology only ensures that each team member meets their expectations and uses personal deadlines to create a certain amount of work. However, it doesn’t consider the project deadline, delaying the work.
Requires a Team Environment
The scrum methodology requires a team of at least three individuals and is appropriate for small groups. However, the method doesn’t perform very well for more than ten members. That is because having additional members delays the decision-making process hence slowing the work.
Needs Experience
The members who provide feedback to the team need to have relevant experience to deliver it accurately. A lack of knowledge or skill will automatically break down the overall system.
Not Appropriate for Plan-Driven Approach Projects
Scrum primarily applies to products that don’t require comprehensive planning and strategies before executing the development process. Instead, it assumes that it can utilize customer feedback and other related procedures to figure out the product development process.
Hard to Implement Quality
The team needs to go through extensive testing to implement the quality successfully. In addition, the scrum process necessitates considerable skills and judgment. The team can only learn the abilities on the job, and it requires coaching, which can take time.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the right approach for any organization can seem daunting. Companies need to sit down with their project managers and understand the way the organization operates as a whole and based on how the teams work as well. Based on that principle alone, any team leader or project manager should make the decision on the Agile approach they need to take.
Selecting the right approach is only one part of implementing Agile practices. Working professionals need to be trained in popular Agile Certification courses to become successful Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Agile Coaches, and more. This will help them in creating efficient Agile teams that deliver quality results with each project.
Some of the popular Agile Certification Courses that individuals and enterprise teams can take up are:
- Certified Scrum Master Training Online
- CSPO Certification Course
- SAFe Scrum Master Certification Training
- Agile Scrum Foundation Certification Training
- Agile Scrum Master Certification Training
- PRINCE2 Agile Foundation Certification Training
When it comes to usage, Agile can be used for virtually any business environment that has a small team of experts, whereas the Scrum method is more specifically created for an environment where the requirements keep changing at a fast rate. To create an effective Agile environment, there has to be a strong sense of leadership to direct the change, whereas when it comes to Scrum, the main focus is on creating a self-organizing, cross-functional team instead.
Since the Scrum sprints happen very frequently, it can be considered to be a more flexible type of Agile methodology. The short duration of the sprints makes it more flexible and responsive when it comes to changes. Agile teams need to have constant collaboration and face-to-face interactions whereas the Scrum interactions take place at a daily stand-up every morning with the Scrum Team.
The principles of Agile and Scrum might be similar, but they are not the same. Agile principles focus more on accepting changing requirements at all stages in the development process and working throughout, on a daily basis, until the project is complete. Its main focus is to develop to achieve technical excellence and the team is required to adjust and adapt their behavior depending on project requirements.
The Scrum principles are focused more on self-organization to create shared ownership within the team, creating an environment that supports and encourages growth and creativity. It also focuses on collaborating with the rest of the team by creating awareness about the progress of the project to create the highest value. Another important principle of Scrum is time constraint. The Scrum Teams work in extremely short sprints to maximize their value from each sprint. Just like Agile, the Scrum process is also an iterative one, the only difference is that the cycles repeat a lot more frequently with Scrum.
Agile vs Scrum: What are the Similarities?
Since Scrum is a part of Agile, they have the same goals and overall objectives. The Scrum method is just a more specific way of achieving the goal. They both have collaborative iterations, focus on creating a flexible environment, and more. The Scrum method is more flexible in a rapidly changing environment, but since it has been narrowed down to a framework, it can be restrictive as well.
Again, the Scrum method will always be Agile, but all Agile approaches may not always be Scrum. To implement either method in an organization or for a particular project, team members need to be trained and coached on the guiding principles of both Agile and Scrum. Agile and Scrum, both ensure a seamless transition and a faster delivery for all projects.
So, what are your thoughts on ‘Agile vs Scrum’? Let us know in the comments. Meanwhile, some of the popular Agile and Scrum courses that individuals and enterprise teams can take up are:
- CSM Certification
- CSPO Certification
- SAFe Scrum Master Certification Training
- Agile Scrum Foundation Certification Training
- Agile Scrum Master Certification Training
- PRINCE2 Agile Foundation Certification Training
