Scrum: What sounds to the German ear like a mixture of Neologism and Anglicism is a common word in English everyday life. It means as much as "crowd" and can be applied very well to the world of work. Often it gets hectic and loud, there's a lot going on and it's best to keep everyone mixed up, so that important data gets lost and the overview is lost - who should keep it at all? Scrum counteracts this.

What is Scrum?

Scrum is a management system that organizes the crowd when everyone else has lost the overview. The success principle of the system is not to completely plan a project from start to finish, but to break it down into small pieces and tackle them one after the other. This allows transparency and feedback to be provided at all times. It is considered to be the best known method of agile project management and should now be part of every digital transformation. This connects the real world with the digital world and offers new forms of interaction between computer and human being. A high degree of agility and flexibility is guaranteed here, since constantly changing circumstances must be adapted.

Who is involved?

A Scrum team consists of three smaller teams. The head of each project is the Scrum Master. As the master of the crowd, he first takes care of the introduction of Scrum and then takes care of compliance with the rules. He keeps an eye on all other teams and all work steps and corrects if something goes wrong. The Product Owner plays a no less important role in Scrum. He forms the interface between the customer and the development team. In constant consultation with the customer, he creates requirements and ensures their implementation in the development team. He is ultimately responsible for the success of the project. The development team then becomes really practical. This team implements the requirements in a self-organized manner and is thus responsible for product quality. In addition to the Scrum team, there are other participants who take on important roles:

Management needs to know and provide all the resources needed to successfully complete a project. Finally, two more external players join the Scrum, who are the reason for the start of the project: The customer and the users. The customer is in contact with the product owner at all times of the project and is asked for feedback after each step, which can then be directly incorporated. The opinion of the users, who can also be customers at the same time, also flows into the development.

Typical process of a scrum-controlled project

First of all, a product vision is required which, after consultation with the customer, is developed by the product owner and can be further developed and changed during the project through constant exchange. For this purpose, the product owner creates a product backlog, i.e. a kind of ordered and written down brainstorming, which he summarizes into requirements. The Kanban technique, for example, can be used for this.

Kanban

Kanban is used to visualize the workflow in order to detect and eliminate existing problems. The individual tasks and work steps are subdivided and parallel tasks are limited. In this way, concentration is always concentrated on one area and efficiency is increased without losing sight of subsequent work steps. It is important that the tasks are integrated into the flow and do not hinder it. If this is the case, this step is scrutinized more closely and optimized if necessary.

The requirements for the Scrum Product are then processed and passed on to the development team, but subdivided into so-called sprints. For this purpose, a sprint backlog is first created in which the development team decides independently which requirements are to be addressed. In the following sprint, which should not last longer than one month, a request is picked out and processed. After a sprint is completed, a new one starts immediately. The result is then presented by the product owner to the customer, who can check the functionality and make any change requests. The team reflects on the steps taken and analyzes and eliminates potential errors. Once an order has been completed, it is marked as "done".

Development of Scrum

Scrum has its origin in software development, but its fields of application go far beyond that. It is also used in hardware development and marketing, as well as in the organization and management of almost all areas of daily working life. On the whole Scrum serves to develop products, to optimize them or to renew them. The current efficiency and working techniques of a project management are taken under the magnifying glass and improvement potentials are pointed out. By splitting a large project into many small workflows and constant communication with the customer and the users, transparency is created. All in all, productivity is significantly increased and future and ongoing projects can be optimized.

Scrum as part of the digital transformation

The goals of Scrum also share the digital transformation. It aims at better analysis of data, clarity, exploitation of potential and prevention of risks. Of course, the customer is always in focus. PROAD is also involved in the digital transformation and sees it as its highest priority to analyze problems and find a customer-centric solution. This can be achieved, for example, with a management method such as Scrum. You can exchange information with customers in real time. The result is a simplified and improved communication, through which every wish meets an open ear.

In principle, Scrum is a system that simply implements all the tips you've heard somewhere about increased productivity. It makes you organize your thoughts and divide them into manageable canapés and smaller teams instead of going off without a plan. The result: a satisfied customer and the solemn marking of a project with "done", which leaves a comfortably warm feeling of satisfaction. What are you waiting for?

The first "done" is already waiting for you!