Scrum Software Development: What You Need to Know to Get Started
The most important feature of any development team is how well they can work together. If they want to solve the problems of their users then they’ll need to be cohesive in order to tackle these issues well.
Teams that are unmotivated or don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing will deliver poor products or fail altogether. This doesn’t help your customers and it certainly doesn’t help your business.
That’s why the Scrum software development framework was created. With this introduction post, you can find out how it can benefit you.
What is Scrum?
Created in 1986 by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, the purpose of Scrum is to help development teams work as a unit towards a common goal.
Takeuchi and Nonaka called it the ‘rugby’ approach as teams in that sport try to “go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth”.
The two men also explained that not only is Scrum incredibly flexible in its approach, it is also “especially good at bringing about innovation continuously, incrementally and spirally”.
This is brought about by three key pillars, the Product Owner, the Development Team and the Scrum Master who is in charge of keeping the team focused.
Benefits of the Backlog
Before anybody in the Scrum team can begin working though, they’ll need to use backlogs to decide what they are meant to do.
Looking at the app or product that they need to build, the team must decide which is the most important feature to build first. Putting together a product backlog step by step, tasks can be added in order of priority to make sure that the key things are completed.
Ranked out of importance, how likely they are to cause problems, value and so on, the list must be created by the Development Team and the Product Owner.
The developers will need to have an input as they know how long each backlog item is going to take. Ultimately, the final list is up to the Product Owner.
‘Sprint’ To The End Product
Once the product backlog is done, the team is almost ready to get going!
A sprint is the process during which the development team does the work. Usually taking a few weeks to complete (but never longer than a month), each sprint starts with a short planning meeting.
These meetings can help further decide what will be done and teams need to put together a Sprint Backlog by choosing items from the Product Backlog. They can also hash out a timeframe for each item to figure out how long it will take and how much of it is likely to get done during the sprint.
Furthermore, daily ‘stand-up’ meetings also take place to keep the team focused. Starting at a precise time in the same place every day everyone comes prepared with updates, sharing what they’ve done, what they plan to do and what challenges they’ve faced.
Under the scrum ethos, some sort of finished product should be ready by the end of the sprint. The product at the end should be potentially shippable so you may want to take this into account during your meetings.
Is Scrum Software Development Right For You?
We use Scrum at EL Passion and it keeps our team on track and our clients happy.
The purpose of the method is to allow teams to do what they do best, without being bogged down by traditional processes. Keeping teams boxed in with rigid strategies will just cause delays to your project.
So, if your team wants to deliver quality products, quickly, Scrum is the way to go.
