Introduction of Scrum Methodology in Software Development
Scrum is a part of agile development methodology approach that is used in software development. As part of agile, it is important to understand the concept of “agile” first before jumping into scrum method.
Agile itself is a software development methodology that increases the efficiency of software development process by undergoing iterative and incremental processes. This method is very adaptive with the situation because there is no in-depth planning prior to the beginning of the project, the adaptation is made through changing requirements throughout the project development.
Scrum methodology is one of the most popular approach to implement agile. It uses the iterative and incremental process that belongs to agile and allows the testing and development to occurs at the same time because teams involved in the project collaborate to generate the result. The change needed in the course of the project is done through the end-user feedback on the end of each loop.
There are several events in scrum:
Sprint as the basic unit of work for a scrum team, this is the main feature that differentiate scrum among other models for agile development
Sprint Planning is an event where everyone defines what must be accomplished in the sprint and how to accomplish the goals.This meeting is held on the beginning of each sprint and define how they will approach the project by referring to the product backlog stages and deadlines. Every sprint will have different features to accomplish.
Daily Scrum is a brief meeting held daily during the sprint period, it is done to evaluate the progress of the sprint by synchronizing the activities and also creating plan for the next day.
Sprint Review is the review stage to confirm that the work has been done according to the product backlog. If the review shows that there is already clear advance in the product it can be readied to be presented to the client
Sprint Retrospective is the stage where team evaluates the completed goals of the sprint in order to avoid the same mistake and find place to improve for the next sprint.
Then there are three main scrum roles:
Scrum master as the person who leads the team to follow the rules, scrum processes and methodology. Basically, scrum master is the one who ensure that the scrum process is done correctly.
To ensure the process to be done correctly, scrum master is responsible in supporting the scrum by educating the participants so that they understand the scrum theory, practices, rules, and values. Scrum master also responsible to assist other participants outside the scrum team to understand when is the time that interacting with the team becomes beneficial or not.
Product Owner represents the stakeholders and the user of the software. They focus more on the business part and responsible to make sure that the project can give the expected return.
In scrum they are the one who translate the vision of the project to the team by fully integrating with the scrum team. They are also in charge of writing user experiences that is incorporated into the product backlog.
Scrum Team is a group of developers who understand the technical knowledge needed to develop the software. They are the ones who carry out the user stories at the start of each sprint.
Benefits of the scrum methodology:
Easily scalable the iterative process that is implemented in scrum which is handled within specified timeframe enables the team to focus on specific functionalities for each period. This is beneficial in delivering better result that is in line with the user needs. It is also allow the teams to scale the modules in terms of functionality, design, scope, and characteristics.
Compliance of expectations means that because of the iterative process where product owner will verify that the requirement has been completed, it allows the team to comply with the expectations of the client that thing are progressing smoothly.
Flexible to changes, scrum method did not have in-depth planning before the sprint, instead they refer to the product backlog and also the updated user stories and requirements. This makes scrum method more flexible with the changing requirements.
Reduction of risks, each sprint prioritized some features that needs to be delivered which makes it easier to understand how much time and risk it will take when executing scrum.
Sources:
