This week in class, we went over the process of Scrum. Essentially, it is a loose framework on how a team should be working if they want the greatest potential from that work. I say ‘loose’ because it is loose, other than providing how the process should go, it allows teams to not only follow this framework, but adapt it and make it unique for their team and their work. I like this methodology for this reason. 

Scrum states that a team consists of developers, a product owner and a scrum master. Each has their own roles and responsibilities in the process. The process has five parts. The main event is the Sprint, which is a one month process where everyone is working in order to achieve a goal. Before this can happen, there is the Sprint planning, which is planning the Sprint and figuring out what needs to be done. Everyday before people start working, there is the Daily Scrum, a short meeting about what needs to be done that day. At the end of the Sprint, there is the Sprint review, going over the results and progress of the Sprint, and the Sprint retrospective, reflecting on the Sprint, as a whole and on individual parts, so that the next Sprint is better. Each part, and the roles, are described in detail in the Scrum guide.

In this blog post, Gregory Crown and Robert Pieper talk about how Scrum could be used outside the realm of software development, like marketing. I chose this particular post because not only does it connect to what we’re learning in class, it talks about how Scrum can be used outside of software development. In the post, they specifically talk about how marketing can use the framework of Scrum, and how it benefits from it. Pieper says that if it is a complex activity or problem, Scrum can help. He describes complex as something requiring a lot of opinions. He uses a water bottle as an example, saying one stakeholder may not like the color, another may ask what the purpose of the rubber thing at the bottom of it is, etc. Essentially, if you show the benefits of something, and there are a lot of different opinions on it, you can benefit from Scrum. He describes it in a very nice way, saying, “if you’re in a subjective environment where you’re getting a lot of opinions, use Scrum.” He says that if what you’re working on is something that just meets requirements, and then moves on, you don’t need Scrum. 

Personally, I agree with what he says. On paper, Scrum is an excellent framework for a lot of things. It has the layout on how to do things, but allows people to fill in the rest, however necessary for things to be done. It is a clean way of doing things, strict yet flexible. This shouldn’t just be a computer science thing either, if others can benefit from this, do it.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Cao's Thoughts by antcao and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.