Introduction to Scrum Development
Scrum development came into existence out of agile software development life cycle. It was developed as a solution to different projects which are going behind the planned schedule or else which are undergoing the most problematic development phase. Scrum is a simple agile method for software development. Scrum is one model of the agile movement and represents a typical shift from “waterfall,” a traditional project management approach that, until recently, has dominated software development. Scrum assumes that the software development process is complicated and unpredictable and treats it as a controlled black box instead of a theoretical, fully-defined process.
The distinct characteristic of this type of project development is that unlike any other agile methodology, the scrum development is treated as adaptive in nature. Many outsourcing software development companies have changed their way of work. They have started using the scrum development to cater to the needs of their customers. The focus of the development changes from why a specification cannot be delivered, to a valid discussion on what all is needed and is possible so as to get the project or a product delivered within the required timeframes. This type of approach is regarded as ‘Positive troubleshooting’ approach.
For carrying out an effective offshore software development process, scrum development is the best tool to be used. Few of the characteristics of a good Scrum tool are:
1) It must not have a fixed process flow. The team must be able to tweak the process to fit their culture and organization.
2) It must be simple enough to enable not get in the way. The team must drive the project rather than the tool.
3) It must produce status and progress reports that are customizable and accessible to the business. Feedback is the process that keeps Scrum / Agile on track in a world of changing priorities.
4) The process must have a business value driven approach. In other words the project management tool must drive business value and make business value delivery clear to the team and stakeholders.
Another characteristic of Scrum is that the software product development process isn’t treated as a linear process. Scrum, however, doesn’t prescribe a sequence in which the activities must be implemented. A project can start with any activity, and can change between activities at any time. This increases the project’s flexibility and productivity.
To manage these processes with flexibility, Scrum supplies techniques and controls to manage this unpredictable process. The Scrum method is deliberately designed as a framework that can be applied to existing processes. A key principle of Scrum is its recognition that during a project the customers can change their minds about what they want and that unpredicted challenges cannot be easily addressed in a traditional predictive or planned manner. As such, Scrum adopts an empirical approach accepting that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined, focusing instead on maximizing the team’s ability to deliver quickly and respond to emerging requirements. SCRUM development works perfectly only when the correct usage of the methodology is done and implemented properly and managed rigorously.
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