The Scrum Primer

Traditional development with single-function groups, delayed or weak feedback loops, frontloaded predictive planning, and a sequential flow from analysis to test is not very successful in today’s volatile world. This approach delays feedback, learning, and potential return on investment due to an absence of real working software until late in the game, causing a lack of transparency, lack of ability to improve, reduction in flexibility, and an increase in business and technical risks. An alternative – cross-functional teams with iterative development – has also existed for decades, but was not as widely used as the traditional model.

Scrum packages proven product-development concepts in a simple framework, including: real teams, cross-functional teams, self-managing teams, short iterative full-cycle feedback loops, and lowering the cost of change. These concepts increase agility and feedback, enable earlier ROI, and reduce risk. Scrum is a development framework in which cross-functional teams develop products or projects in an iterative, incremental manner. It structures development in cycles of work called Sprints. At the end of the Sprint, the Team reviews the Sprint with stakeholders, and demonstrates what it has built. People obtain feedback that can be incorporated in the next Sprint. Scrum emphasizes working product at the end of the Sprint that is really “done”; in the case of software, this means a system that is integrated, fully tested, end-user documented, and potentially shippable. There are many concise descriptions of Scrum available online, and this primer aims to provide the next level of detail on the practices.

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