Why Does Scrum Work?

Hey guys, and in this video we are going to talk about why does Scrum work. Increasingly in this day and age, more and more companies are adopting Agile and Scrum methodologies in some form or fashion. If you want to work in project management in IT especially, you have to be aware of how Scrum and Agile work these days. In a nutshell, how it works is that the team would decide on the most important requirement that they could fulfill in a given sprint. And usually a sprint is between 1 to 4 weeks long, but generally a sprint is 2 weeks long. So the team is getting together and talking about what's the most important thing we can do in the next 2 weeks to add the most amount of value to our stakeholders. And they go ahead and they would build that during the next 2 weeks. Once the 2 weeks or the sprint is over, they would demo whatever they have built to the relevant stakeholders, get feedback, and then Do the cycle all over again until the product is finished. Today I'm going to talk about why does Scrum work, and I'm going to give you 4 reasons. The first reason is that Scrum forces a team to make a plan. So at the beginning of each sprint, the Scrum team works together to create a plan, breaking down items into individual subtasks. Each subtask represents a discrete step required to complete the work. This forces them to think strategically about what they need to do, leading to increased productivity during the Sprint because they can keep their heads down and focus on completing the work. The second reason is that Scrum doesn't give a team quite enough time. So each Sprint is a fixed amount of time, usually is 2 weeks long, but depending on the organization, it could be 1 week, it could be 3 weeks or 4 weeks, but the standard is 2 weeks long. So each fixed duration Sprint helps prevent the Development Team from working on anything that's not critical to driving things to done as quickly as possible. Remember that before you start your Agile project, you want to get together with your Agile team to define what is the definition of done for your project. The definition of done just tells the whole team what it means for a particular user story to be done. Does it mean that once it has passed all the testing that it's done? Does it mean that it has to be released in order for it to be done? You want to define that upfront. So by not giving the Scrum Team enough time, this helps avoid time-consuming but low-value activities, and it also helps avoid overbuilding the product. This is a process that's frowned upon, and it is called gold plating. So because each iteration is fixed, in the amount of time that the development team has, it just allows the team to just focus on the most critical items and they won't have time to do gold plating, for example. Now, the third reason why Scrum works is because Scrum forces a team to communicate. Many technical people are not natural communicators and most companies don't know how to create a framework that drives effective collaboration. Scrum solves this problem by creating an environment that requires communication on a regular basis. For example, every single day before the team goes off and do their work, you will have a 15-minute daily standup meeting where the team gets together, talk about what they did yesterday, what they're going to do today, and if there are any roadblocks on their way. What this does is that this allows the team to coordinate their work. Scrum gets the team members communicating much more than they might without a framework. And then the 4th reason why Scrum works is because Scrum forces a team to be held accountable. So when I talk to business leaders and I ask them what they want most, I typically hear, I'd like my team to have more ownership and accountability. And Scrum delivers on this promise by empowering the team to decide on what they will commit to completing and putting them in front of the business stakeholders at the end of the Sprint to show them the results. So just to recap, the 4 reasons why Scrum works is because Scrum forces a team to make a plan, Scrum doesn't give the team just quite enough time, Scrum forces a team to communicate, and lastly, Scrum forces a team to be held accountable. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. I will see you soon. Thank you.