Why Scrum?
Scrum has been around since the early 1990s, but it wasn’t until the following decade that it became popular. It has conquered the world, debunked traditional methods and become the most successful way of working in software development. A 2015 survey shows that software development projects using Scrum or similar methods are 3.5 times more likely to succeed (THE STANDISH GROUP, 2015).
Nevertheless, the spectacular growth of Scrum adoption in recent years does not mean that all problems are solved. Far from it. The use of Scrum implies a profound change in how organizations understand and deal with work, with the people who perform this work, with those who request it and with those who use its results. So, while Scrum may be easy to understand, its adoption can be difficult and painful. It is not uncommon for these organizations to seek shortcuts and simplifications without, however, transforming what is actually needed.
Scrum increases the chance of success by delivering value faster and dealing with the inevitable scope changes from the outset, transforming them into competitive advantages. Its use can also increase the quality of the delivered product and improves a team’s productivity.
In short, Scrum increases efficiency when doing product development work and, more importantly, the effectiveness of the results.
Efficiency and effectiveness “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”
- Peter Drucker
Scrum is applied to the development of products with similarly varied characteristics. From critical products involving hundreds of thousands of dollars to simple, in-house products. For the development of commercial software, digital businesses, embedded software, mobile applications, financial software, and games. It has been successfully adopted by organizations of all sizes and types, from multinationals to startups, from the famous to the unknown.
Its use is not limited to software development, although it was originally conceived for that objective. Today Scrum is also used for different objectives, such as creating marketing campaigns, developing hardware products, and designing and executing various types of services.
In these materials, I consider product development to be the work of conducting the activities necessary for the creation and evolution of a product, by adding and modifying features and behaviors, in addition to correcting problems and errors.
In the case of software development, for example, these activities may include programming, different types of testing and documentation, etc. With Scrum, the work of developing a product is an ongoing process.
Example: virtual store
We aim to sell our products online. At the end of the first of various short development cycles, we already implemented a virtual store that, when put into production, will allow the sale, even if basic, of our most profitable items to purchasing users with the greatest purchasing potential. After that we receive feedback from relevant people and implement, in the next cycle, some improvements that we consider necessary.
Only now will we make the store available to our purchasing users, aimed at only that profile with the greatest purchase potential. These users, when they begin to access, search and buy, will generate metrics that help us define what to improve in the store and what to implement next, in the following cycles. We will continue with the work cycle after cycle and, little by little, reach more buying users and offer more products, each time improving the experience.
Example: marketing campaigns
We are a digital marketing agency and we develop our campaigns working in short, one-week cycles. Our teams are cross-functional and each has strong expertise in SEO, data science, script writing and graphic design, among others. The teams’ members work together, always focused on a well-defined goal planned at the beginning of each cycle. At the end, we hold a videoconference with the customers that were the focus of our work and collect feedback, which will then feed the work of the following cycle.
Example: process automation
We will develop the automation of repetitive internal processes in our organization, with the primary goal of “freeing employees to perform more noble work.” In line with this goal, the greatest value lies in automating those routines that take up most of our staff’s time. And that’s where we’ll begin, from the first of a series of short product-development cycles, generating automation routines and gradually substituting manual work. We will continue to prioritize work in pursuit of this goal and deliver as often as possible, freeing up more and more of our staff’s time.
Example: telecommunications
In our telecommunications company we have software products that help us with our day-to-day operations and in interactions with the consumers of our services. We maintain reasonably stable teams that take care of both the development and operation/evolution of these products. In fact, it is these products that support the entire operation of our company and allow us to have a profitable business. The teams work with Scrum in short cycles, continually adding features and modifying products to help us better meet the needs of our users, both internal and external. This constant evolution allows us to stay ahead of the competition and respond quickly to any relevant market movement.
When learning Scrum, you will encounter terms such as value delivery, teamwork, autonomy, facilitation, motivation and relationships with customers and users, among many others. Scrum uses few really new concepts and, in my opinion, this is one of its great qualities: bringing together different ideas and market practices, many already known and established, in an organized manner and directed to contexts where they are appropriate.
Customers and users In this work, I call customers those who request or contract the development of a product and users those who actually use the product. Customers can be users, but not necessarily so.
It is important to bear in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Scrum is a simple and small framework and thus works well in every context if used in conjunction with other techniques and practices to be chosen, tried, and adapted. It is an excellent choice for product development, for the organizations that do this work and for their customers. The benefits gained from using Scrum will be explained throughout this book. Below, I summarize some of them.