• Agile & Scrum Basics

What is the difference between Agile and Scrum?

The biggest difference between Agile and Scrum? Scrum is a framework. Agile is a mindset. The idea of Agile is that you have to be agile to survive as a company in a changing marketplace. There are all kinds of methodologies that are part of the Agile family. For example, Scrum falls under the Agile family. Is Agile Scrum and what does Scrum stand for? We’ll work everything out nicely for you.

2 Biggest differences between Agile and Scrum

1. Agile is a body of thought based on an iterative and incremental approach. Scrum is one of the implementations of the Agile methodology.

2. The Agile method represents regular delivery to the end user for feedback. In Scrum, you may deliver a build to the customer for feedback after each sprint. This is also allowed in the middle of a sprint.

So what is Scrum?

Scrum is derivative of Agile: a process framework. More than forty agile methods have been developed. Scrum is the best known and the most widely used framework. With Scrum, work is done in self-organizing, multidisciplinary teams. These teams work in short sprints of one week to four weeks.

The Scrum team often consists of a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 9 people. The team members are all assigned a role. The roles within Scrum are:

• Product owner: representative of the customer (internal or external). The Product Owner is responsible for stakeholder management and monitors priorities in the process.
• Scrum master: he or she motivates the team and is responsible for process supervision. The Scrum Master removes blockages, as this allows the team to continue working unhindered.
• Development team: other team members make up the development team. This team creates the product and collectively creates a valuable partial product each sprint.

5 Benefits of scrumming

1. Self-organizing team with optimal results

The self-organizing Scrum team sets to work to deliver a (partial) product in sprints. The stakeholders define the desired outcome in the form of a user story. The team then considers how they are going to achieve this result.

Many moments of contact with stakeholders is important because it allows you to build exactly what the client needs. Scrum makes you more predictable for the client. After a few sprints, you get to know the capacity of the Scrum team and know how much room you need for risks or possible setbacks. Less stress. Satisfied stakeholders.

2. Realistic sprint planning

The Product Owner determines what the priorities are. Based on this, the development team plans the work for the upcoming sprint. A big advantage is that the team can estimate everything jointly and thus more realistically. The result is a supported planning. The entire team supports this planning so that it actually delivers results.

3. Effective work and clear communication

Scrum offers optimal ROI (return on investment). The team works efficiently on a project, which ensures faster progress and predictability to the customer. Stakeholders are satisfied because there is clear communication about progress and what it delivers. This also makes for satisfied employees.

Be alert to the start-up phase. In the beginning, there will be a dip in productivity. This is because the team has to learn a new way of working. Also, the development team and the Product Owner often have to get used to each other. It often takes a few sprints before you know what the team’s capacity is. After the start-up phase, you see a self-organizing and productive team.

4. Always evolving

After each sprint, which usually lasts 2 to 4 weeks, you deliver a working project or component. In this way, the project is always evolving.

5. Build only what you need

Working with the Product Owner, you make sure you pick up parts that are really needed. You often deliver the basic part first and start realizing various parts in emerging sprints.

Getting started with Scrum?

Yes, what does Scrum stand for? Scrum is a powerful framework that adds value to projects. If you pick up the Agile mindset, you can start right away. What could be better than seeing a project as an experiment to really do things differently in your organization? The benefits that Scrum offers means that, as an organization, you need to gain experience with the power of Scrum!