What Is Scrum Methodology?

Scrum methodology is an agile approach designed to make project management teams more effective and quicker to adapting and responding to changes that occur at work. As an agile approach, scrum methodology requires teams to perform their work in a cyclical and incremental process so that they may immediately put into use whatever new discoveries they have learned in previous cycles. This particular agile methodology is different from other agile approaches due to its use of empirical process control.

Despite the fact that this particular project management methodology is frequently associated with software development, it can be applied to virtually any business activity that requires teamwork or product development. It is iterative in nature, so it is repetitive and may appear simpler than it actually is. With this program management methodology, team members start with a backlog or a list of tasks that they are required or intend to complete. They then select one or several items from the backlog and are expected to complete it within a given sprint, or the amount of time allotted for the task, as well as assess their daily progress, which is also known as daily scrum. This process continues until every item in their backlog has been crossed off.

A sprint backlog used is different from product backlogs. Sprint backlogs are actually taken from the product backlog and are the number of tasks the team is expected to finish off in a single sprint. Prior to each sprint, teams also typically meet up for a planning session to determine the items from the backlog that would be taken and used for a sprint backlog. In scrum methodology, one team member is also frequently selected to act as scrum master, which should not be confused with a leader, because agile methodology requires teams to be self-organizing by nature. Scrum masters are people who get rid of anything and everything that could slow down the team’s progress in completing their sprint backlog.

The two other key players in scrum methodology are the team member and product owner. A product owner is the person responsible for giving the project management team direction and vision for the product they are tasked to create with the use of product backlogs. Team members then determine among themselves what their respective roles would be, absent someone in a leadership position.

Scrum methodology is described as empirical because with each sprint, teams are able to use actual and real-time information or results to determine what they should do with the next team. Other types of agile methodology rely on projected data. Scrum methodologies are considered more time-efficient than most other methodologies.