Introduction to Scrum
Principles of the standard framework
The Scrum framework is based on three development principles:
- Evolutionary management of the product, rather than traditional or predictive management.
- Quality of the result based on the tacit knowledge of people, rather than on the explicit knowledge of processes and technology.
- Incremental development strategy through iterations (sprints).
It starts with an overall vision of the desired result and, from there, the features to be delivered first are specified and detailed.
Each sprint ends with the delivery of a working part of the product (an increment). Each sprint usually lasts between 1 and 3 weeks, and keeping the same cadence throughout is preferred.
How Scrum Manages Project Evolution
Iteration review
At the end of each sprint, the result is functionally reviewed with everyone involved in the project. The length of the sprint is the maximum period of time for discovering flawed, improvable, or misinterpreted approaches in the product's features.
Incremental development
Instead of working with designs or abstractions throughout the entire construction of the product, Scrum delivers a working part of the product at the end of each iteration that can be used, inspected, and evaluated.
Scrum is especially well suited to projects with uncertain or unstable requirements. Instability is not a problem that Scrum tries to avoid: it is a premise that Scrum embraces. Scrum's working techniques make evolution easier without degrading the quality of the architecture.
Self-organization
Scrum Teams are self-managing, with enough room to maneuver to make the decisions they see fit. The manager's role is not to assign and monitor work: it is to create the conditions for the team to work autonomously.
Collaboration
Collaboration is an essential component of self-organization. All team members collaborate openly according to their abilities, not according to their role or their position in the hierarchy.
Common mistake
Adopting Scrum as a list of rituals without understanding its principles. Holding Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum, and the Sprint Retrospective does not make a team agile if there is no self-management, no real collaboration, and no delivery of value in every sprint. Scrum's event structure is the scaffolding; the principles of evolutionary management are the building.
Resources
📄 Scrum Master v.4.0Free download · Scrum Manager · in Spanish
📄 Scrum Master en equipos con IA v.1.0 [Scrum Master in Teams with AI]Free download · Scrum Manager · in Spanish
See also
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