Scale Your Impact
What if it took the same amount of work to engage and serve 100 people as it would for 10? Let’s map out your workflows and processes and then adapt them in order to impact others at scale.
You’re in a meeting this week, and someone suggested you should try Scrum. Or maybe you’re searching through jobs in your area, and Scrum Master keeps coming up.
In any of these situations, you’re likely wondering, “What is Scrum?”
If you really want to dig into the answer, check my What is Scrum Guide. But for now, let’s just begin with some definitions.
My Working Definition of Scrum
Scrum is a team-based framework to increase work visibility allowing for regular evaluation and timely adjustments.
Scrum is founded on three essential pillars:
As you learn Scrum, you’ll want to ask these three questions each time you encounter a new element of Scrum.
- How does this make things more visible? (Transparency)
- Where does this create space to evaluate? (Inspection)
- When does this encourage growth? (Adaptation)
Understanding the answers to these questions will help you learn the heart of Scrum and apply it more intuitively in new contexts. I explore this in-depth in my What is Scrum Guide.
A More Technical Definition of Scrum
Scrum.org is a great resource. Let’s look at their definition.
Scrum is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest. possible value.”
- scrum.org
There’s a lot in that definition, so let’s break it down into a few key elements.
People
People are central to the Scrum framework. There are three clearly defined roles in Scrum:
Together these three roles make up the Scrum team. Each plays a part in making things visible, creating space for evaluation, and encouraging growth. Follow the links for a deeper dive into roles in Scrum.
- What are the roles in Scrum?
- What is a Scrum Master?
- What does the Scrum Master do each day?
- What is a Product Owner?
- What does a Product Owner do each day?
- Can the Scrum Master and Product Owner be the same person?
- What makes a team a “Development Team” in Scrum?
- What if I don't have all the roles?
Complex adaptive problems
Problem-solving lives at the heart of the most meaningful work. With the speed of change today, the complexity of the issues we need to solve seems to be growing at an exponential rate.
Have you ever started a project to solve one problem, but a third of the way in, through new information or a change in circumstances, you are now addressing a different issue? It’s easy to get lost in the complexity that is now becoming the norm. Scrum helps make the right things visible, bringing clarity to the current reality.
We face problems that are neither simple nor static. Scrum is oriented around the rhythm of sprints, lasting anywhere from one to four weeks. These short rhythms of time allow the team to adapt and are key tools for moving forward and making progress even in uncertainty.
When complexity or volatility is high, the sprint should be shorter. If you find yourself facing complex problems where the scope, requirements, or environment have a tendency to change, then Scrum is likely a powerful tool for you and your team.
Creatively
The flexibility and freedom of Scrum allow the team to solve the correct problems and to do so more creatively. The right mixture of constraints and flexibility are great ingredients for solving problems in creative and novel ways.
Multiply Light Bulb Moments
It’s easy to feel stuck or have an obstacle and not be sure how to begin to overcome it. I can lead your team through workshops for discovery, ideation, problem-solving, and solution testing.
Delivering Products
Product development has been the dominant implementation of Scrum, though, in recent years, Scrum has extended into marketing, content creation and even creative design. Two characteristics make Scrum well suited for developing products:
- Scrum delivers core features quickly, allowing early user feedback to be visible to the development team and stakeholders.
- Scrum is agile enough to adapt as product requirements shift based on feedback or changes in priorities.
At the end of every sprint, the Scrum team should deliver a new increment of a working product. In app development, this could be the ability to log in or a basic details screen. The expectation is for each sprint to have a releasable increment. This cadence pushes clarity around features and requirements to achieve a satisfactory state of completeness.
Highest Possible Value
Providing value is why great teams go to work. But have you ever produced something the client didn’t use because, in the end, it didn’t solve the right problem? It doesn’t feel good, but sadly it’s familiar for many of us. Often clients or sponsors can’t precisely identify what they need, or their needs change. By delivering value a little at a time, Scrum invites earlier visibility and evaluation. So if the team is not producing the right, highest value, there is still an opportunity for change.
All requirements, features, and work to be done by the Scrum team is organized into a backlog. The backlog is ordered based on priority. The product owner role is responsible for ordering the backlog to create the most value for users based on the priorities of the stakeholders.
The backlog is visible to everyone, and there’s no ambiguity about what is important and what is getting done. This prioritization is continually reviewed and updated during backlog refinement to ensure the team’s work and output maximize value.
Start Learning Scrum
Even after covering two definitions of Scrum, we’re just scratching the surface.
If you want to learn how you can focus and consistently deliver value, then I encourage you to explore my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. It will walk you through the core concepts of Scrum, teach you how to get set up and provide examples to follow. If you have more specific questions. Look at my Scrum FAQ or Scrum Glossary.
If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.
Scale Your Impact
What if it took the same amount of work to engage and serve 100 people as it would for 10? Let’s map out your workflows and processes and then adapt them in order to impact others at scale.
This post is part of an upcoming guide called Everyday Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum where I will explore and explain the key elements of Scrum.
Perhaps you have heard about Scrum but are not exactly sure what it is. Or maybe you know some about it but are not sure how to apply it, especially outside a software development context.
You find my my current and future guides on everyday.design. Signup to be the first to know when new guides are released.
There are a lot of new terms when learning the Scrum essentials, and this post probably introduced you to some of the vocabulary.
If you want to learn more about specific Scrum topics, here are a few to choose from or check out the scrum FAQs.
Applying Scrum
- How do I keep my team focused on the right work?
- What to do when projects change?
- Getting work done as a team
- How to change direction after investing effort?
Agile in Everyday Life
- Can I use Scrum for non-software development projects?
- Scrum for marketing
- Scrum for creative design
- Scrum in content creation
- Scrum in personal development
- Scrum in education
- Scrum in everyday home projects
Scrum Roles
- What is a Scrum Product Owner?
- What does a Product Owner do each day?
- Getting Certified as a Product Owner
- What is a Scrum Master?
- What does a Scrum Master do each day?
- Getting Certified as a Scrum Master
- Can The Scrum Master And Product Owner Be The Same Person
- How Is A Scrum Master Different Than A Project Manager?
Scrum Meetings
- How to do a standup/check-in?
- How to do sprint planning in Scrum?
- How does backlog refinement work in Scrum?
- What is a sprint review in Scrum?
- How to conduct a retrospective in Scrum?
Scrum General Topics
- Why Use Scrum?
- What Is The Definition Of Scrum?
- What Are The Pros & Cons Of Scrum?
- Scrum: Expectations Vs. Reality
- Is Scrum Hard To Learn?
- How To Align The Scrum Values With Your Organizational Culture
- What's the difference between iterative and incremental development?
- What Is The Definition Of Done In Scrum?
Scrum Advanced Topics
- Learn To Forecast Progress In Scrum
- What If I Don't Have All The Roles In Scrum?
- Scaling Using SAFe
- Cost Estimation
To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.
FAQs
What is Scrum?
What is the definition of scrum?
Scrum is a team-based framework to increase work visibility allowing for regular evaluation and timely adjustments.
Scrum is founded on three essential pillars leading teams to ask the following questions:
- How does this make things more visible? (Transparency)
- Where does this create space to evaluate? (Inspection)
- When does this encourage growth? (Adaptation)
Further explore the definition of scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Is Scrum hard to learn?
The typical response is Scrum is easy to understand but hard to practice.
This is because Scrum’s simplicity makes learning easy, but Scrum truly changes how you work, and that adjustment can be difficult. It changes power dynamics and expectations within the team and between the team and the rest of the organization.
You can explore further is Scrum hard to learn, along with the pros and cons of Scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
When did Scrum start?
The term was first used in project management in 1986 but the first Scrum project wasn't until 1993.
Scrum was initially used as a term related to project management in 1986 by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in their paper “New New Product Development Game” In the Harvard Business Review. The first recorded Scrum project came a little later in 1993 from Jeff Sutherland.
You can learn more about Scrum’s backstory. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
What do all the scrum words mean?
There are many, check the glossary.
Learning Scrum for the first time can be overwhelming. There are a lot of new terms and concepts in Scrum. I’ve listed the most common terms in a Scrum glossary.
How to use Scrum
Why use Scrum?
Scrum is vital for teams to deliver value amidst changing circumstances.
It forces clarity and prioritization, which provides the focus necessary for teams to be effective. Scrum embraces complexity and change by keeping many things simple and iteratively evaluating and adapting.
You can learn more about why to use Scrum and three challenges Scrum solves. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
When does Scrum not work well?
Scrum can fail when there is a substantial mismatch between organizational culture and the Scrum values.
Scrum isn’t always the best option for teams. Scrum can fail when there is a substantial mismatch between organizational culture and the Scrum values. It also depends on the nature of the work you do. If you work if very linear, predictable and tightly defined, you may not experience many benefits Scrum provides.
Find out more about aligning your organizational values with Scrum or how Scrum might fit in your context. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
How do I know when to use Scrum?
When you have a dedicated team, a singular product and are facing uncertainty.
Scrum functions at its best when you have a dedicated team focused on developing a singular product. Its agility shines when there are time constraints combined with uncertainty.
Explore the pros and cons of Scrum along with expectations vs. realities with Scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Learning to apply Scrum
How to choose between Scrum and Kanban?
Scrum and Kanban have many similarities, and which one is right for you will depend on your context.
Important factors include your team size and the type of work you do. Kanban is very process-oriented, so you should consider how defined, static, or long your process is?
You can explore Scrum and other agile approaches. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
How does scrum help an organization?
Scrum forces clarity and prioritization.
Scrum forces clarity and prioritization, which are critical to organizational effectiveness. It provides a competitive edge by allowing teams to adapt as the market or priorities change. Teams operate more effectively because Scrum combines empowerment of the team members with alignment to top priorities.
Learn more about scrum’s impact on organizational culture. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Is scrum a methodology or a framework?
Scrum is more of a framework than a methodology.
Scrum is more of a framework than a methodology, and it helps teams adhere to Agile principles and get stuff done. Scrum provides basic rules but doesn’t prescribe how to do the work. It provides principles, values, rules, and some core structure but still leaves a lot undefined.
Learn more about scrum as a framework. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
What’s the difference between scrum and agile?
If you’re practicing Scrum, you’re working in an Agile way.
When people say “agile,” they usually refer to it as a mindset. Scrum is a framework for how to organize people and work in an agile way. If you’re practicing Scrum, you’re working in an Agile way.
Learn more about the relationship between scrum and agile. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Scrum team
How does a scrum team work?
The product owner, scrum master and development team all have a role in the Scrum team.
The scrum team is made up of the product owner, scrum master and development team. They each play important roles.
- The product owner maximizes the value delivered by the product.
- The scrum master maximizes the impact of the development team.
- The development team transforms the product vision into reality.
Learn more about how a scrum team works together. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Is a Scrum Master a project manager?
The project manager is focused first on the work. The scrum master is focused first on the people.
Project managers and scrum masters differ in where they focus and what they emphasize.
The project manager is focused first on the work. Does the project have everything it needs to get done? The scrum master is focused first on the people. Are they the best team they can be to get projects done?
Continue learning about the relationship between a scrum master and a project manager. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Can a scrum master be a developer?
Yes. But a dedicated full time Scrum Master is best.
This combo is very doable, but it depends on the person. Some people are great team contributors but are not good scrum masters.
Often, people suggest the type A personality to be the Scrum Master because they seem like the typical leader type. Unfortunately, what usually happens here is that person begins to act like the team's boss, which is not the role of the scrum masters.
Learn more about the roles of a scrum team. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
What’s the right scrum team size?
The ideal development team size is between three and nine people.
With less than three, you don’t get much of the benefit of collaboration or shared momentum. More than nine, and the logistics of coordination start to eat away at the benefits of coordination.
Learn more about how a scrum team works together. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.