Did you know that it is possible to perform Scrum without being Agile – and being Agile is not about following Scrum?  Many falsely assume that they are Agile simply since they perform Scrum in their daily work. It’s a basic assumption, which may have consequences to the success of the team. Let’s take a dive into the details.

Agile Mindset

Agile mindset is about product development that takes a constantly frequent approach towards reaching achievable goals. This agile approach has the aim of establishing early and measurable Return on Investment through defined and repetitive delivery of product features. It is necessary and important to make sure there are aligned expectations and an involved product owner can adapt easily to any form of change during the process and this is a result of the frequent nature of thinking agile. There are several and various methods that can be used to aid the implementation of this agile and some among the most used and the most common are Scrum, Kanban, and Extreme Programming (XP). It also refers to some software development methods revolving around frequent collaboration between these teams. It helps teams to deliver value at a faster rate. It assists in ensuring top-notch features and high quality embedded. It aids in encouraging teamwork, achieving organization, and lays down a foundation for having an approach that tally with meeting the needs of the clients and meeting the requirements needed to achieve your goals.

Scrum Framework

Scrum Framework is a specific method that is used by introducing a range of roles, artifacts, and events types. It provides a process for how to identify and prioritize features, who will collaborate to deliver the features, how the work will be done, and when the work will get completed. In this setting, the team is consisting of a product owner whose responsibility is to maximize the value of a specific product and a Scrum master who is responsible for making sure the scrum method is implemented and used by the participating team in charge as well as some other team members.

Difference Between Agile and Scrum

These two are known to both depend on a frequent procedure, frequent interaction with clients, and sufficient collaboration while trying to make decisions but the most important difference between these two practices is that Agile is a mindset that utilizes a core set of values and principles while Scrum is a specific agile framework that can be used to facilitate the development. To highlight the differences:

• Agile is an umbrella mindset while Scrum is a specific Agile framework.
• Scrum is capable of breaking deliveries into shorter and smaller sprints to deliver value early and often
• Agile doesn’t come with anything. Period. Scrum provides specific roles to play and guidelines on how to play.

Scrum offers support and encouragement to teams in a bid to maneuver their way through experiences, maintain organization while trying to find a solution to a problem or an issue, and reflect on the results of their handiwork to enable them to improve on their ability. It describes a set of meetings, tools, and roles that work in conjunction to offer aid to teams in the bid to effectively structure and manage their work.

Scrum artifacts

We have three artifacts that are valuable while working with a team. These artifacts are tools used to solve problems encountered and they are listed below, with details.

Product Backlog: This is the primary list of work that needs to get done maintained by the product owner. This is a dynamic list of features, requirements, enhancements, and fixes that acts as the input for the sprint backlog. It can also be called the “To Do” list of this team. The product backlog is on a steady level, revisited, re-prioritized, and maintained by the product owner because due to changes in the market, items may no longer be relevant or problems may get solved in other ways.

Sprint Backlog: This is the list of items, user stories, or bug fixes, selected by the development team for implementation in the current sprint. Before each sprint, in the sprint planning, the team chooses which items it will work on for the sprint from the product backlog. A sprint backlog may be flexible and can evolve during a sprint. However, what the team wants to achieve from the current sprint is something that can never be compromised.

Sprint Goal: This is the usable end-product from a sprint. It is normally demonstrated as the “increment” during the sprint demo, where the team shows what was completed in the sprint. Although, the word increment may not be used, the word as it is most times referred to as the team’s definition of “Done”. This only depends on how your teams choose to define their “Done” It just depends on how your team’s tags when you are through and how you define your sprint goals. The longer it takes to release a software, the higher the risk that software will miss the designated mark.

Agile manifesto

If the agile manifesto is removed and we relate it to the elements in Scrum only, these are what we will observe.

Individuals over process: There would be a self-organized scrum team that will be working autonomously with a scrum master. Scrum does not define how the team makes a turnaround in the user story, which is facilitated by the product owner, into an active feaure that can be verified and approved by the product owner and customers.

Working software over comprehensive documentation: One of the core features of Scrum is the fact that each increment (sprint) result in pieces of working software that can be considered “done”. The product owner and customer verified and approves the delivery. Documentation of the software is important, but it’s more important that the software works and lives up the expectations.

Collaboration with the client over the negotiation of contract: The product owner role has been put into the equation to make sure bridges are built between traditional, detailed, requirement specifications and the working scrum team. The activities of the scrum team will be validated by the product owner through constant refinement sessions and sprint review.

Responding to change over planning: A product owner owns the product and release backlog of the team. These backlogs are continuously being maintained with special attention to priority and changes in scope. A flexible (agile) approach to requirements management is reached through continuous contact between product owner, scrum master and scrum team.