The podcast episode, “Scrum vs Agile & Keys to Success with Mike Cohn,” discusses the ways to succeed using the Agile methodology and how to work with the Scrum Guide to create an efficient plan for your team. I selected this episode because I believe that one of the major aspects of creating an efficient team is the steps you take to complete your work. To do that, you must follow a methodology to create a plan to complete your goal. In class, we learned about Agile and the advantages it had over waterfall, so listening to a podcast about Agile was very intriguing. The episode emphasizes that you don’t have to adhere to the Scrum Guide as if it were a rule book, and that you have to work with your team to find out what aspects of the guide work best within the team to allow for maximum efficiency. This is a big mistake that many people make because they are scared of “breaking the rules.” However, this is something that one must be able to do if they want to elevate their work to the next level. From this, I thought the podcast was very interesting since we recently learned about these methods in class. In class, we discussed the steps of Agile and the benefits it has compared to the waterfall methodology that we learned about prior. In addition, we also learned about the Scrum Guide, where we were taught the aspects as well as the elements that the Scrum Guide highlights to help users understand Scrum. From our work, we were shown that you are allowed to deviate from the Scrum Guide; it is just a basic framework to help users put the steps in an effective order. After the episode, I believe that it gave valuable insights on how these methods work in real company settings, highlighting how you don’t have to follow the guide to a tee and you must find out what works best for your team to allow for the most efficient work. Plus, through the discussion of real-world examples, it promoted further thinking about what we learned in class as well as how to connect the ideas we were taught to work experiences. Once it comes time for me to apply this to my work, it will be helpful to understand that the Scrum Guide is not a rule book but a guide to take aspects from to assist in efficient teamwork.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Giovanni Casiano – Software Development by Giovanni Casiano and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.