What is the scrum framework?
5 min
Beginner
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to:
- Describe how scrum is a highly adaptable framework
- Explain that the fundamental principles of scrum remain consistent across all implementations
- Discuss the advantages of agility compared to traditional methodologies
- Define how a product is a vehicle for delivering value
The definition of scrum
Scrum is an agile framework
If you are just getting started, think of scrum as a way for your team to work in small pieces. With scrum, your team can think and work critically throughout, making changes and improvements as you go. Continuous experimentation and feedback loops along the way allow you to learn and improve.
When work is broken into smaller pieces, you can deliver value incrementally, adapt quickly to change, and prioritize collaboration and feedback. Scrum can be tailored to different industries and types of work while maintaining its core principles.
👇 Here are a few examples of where you might use scrum.
A scrum team includes a scrum master, product owner, developers or team members working together in iterative cycles called sprints. While you can implement parts of scrum theory to make improvements to collaboration and workflow, you’ll get the most benefit using the entire scrum framework.
Scrum theory
Teams that use scrum start with the basic framework and review processes regularly to continuously improve while retaining core practices such as daily meetings and retrospectives.
While scrum is highly adaptable, its fundamental principles remain consistent across all implementations. These include:
- Empirical process control based on transparency, inspection, and adaptation
- Self-organization
- Collaboration
- Value-based prioritization
- Time-boxing
- Iterative development
- Continuous improvement
The advantages of scrum theory
Implementing any change in working style can have advantages and challenges. The advantages of implementing scrum often outweigh any challenges that might be encountered but it is worth considering both.
👇Click the tabs below to learn more.
- Creates a values-driven culture
- Assigns distinct accountabilities to each role
- Has simple rules
- Improves collaboration
- Empowers team members
Deliver products with scrum
The scrum framework enables teams to deliver functional products.
What is a product?
A product is a means of delivering value. Organizations can deliver value in a lot of ways, for example:
- A physical object that a customer can hold in their hands, such as a camera or a mobile phone
- A digital experience, such as a digital game or an app for communicating with friends
- A service, such as those offered by travel agencies or an event-planning groups, businesses or organizations
- A combination of all of the above, as in the case of a car where a customer’s experience may include driving the vehicle, updating the software digitally, and taking it to the service center for repairs
👇 A product could be a physical object, digital experience, service, or a combination of these elements that creates an experience.
Adapt scrum to your work
You can adapt scrum to different contexts by maintaining the scrum framework’s core principles and tailoring the specifics to your needs. Here are some leading practices for leveraging scrum:
👇Click the boxes below to explore more about adapting scrum to your projects.
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Use the pillars of scrum to assess and improve how your team works
- The three pillars of scrum
- The importance of the three pillars