What’s the Difference Between Agile and Scrum?

Agile is a software development method. It’s been in use for several decades and has been adopted by a growing number of software teams. Scrum is an implementation of the Agile method. It’s used mostly by software development teams that work in iterative cycles, where they complete a series of short, focused projects every couple of weeks. When you hear the words Agile and Scrum, what do you think? Are they the same thing? What’s the difference between them? Read on to learn more about these two software development methods and their similarities and differences.

What is Agile Software Development?

Agile software development is a method for planning and delivering software. It’s a radical approach to creating software, one that’s becoming more mainstream with each passing year. Agile is a philosophy and a set of practices based on the idea that people and organizations learn best when they’re provided with an environment that’s adaptable, flexible, and responsive. In this environment, they’re able to quickly identify problems and, through experimentation and feedback, find solutions. This way of working is most effective when it’s done iteratively and in frequent sprints. It’s a process that involves identifying a small number of core features, creating a backlog of user stories, and then breaking down the backlog into a series of sprints.

Scrum: An Implementation of Agile

Scrum is an implementation of Agile. It’s a framework for managing the development process for short, time-boxed projects. The most common way to implement Scrum is to have a team of software developers who work in an agile development environment with an organization that requires them to use an agile methodology. The team consists of a product owner who is responsible for prioritizing user stories and managing the backlog, a Scrum Master who coaches the team and manages their work, and a developer who leads the others by providing a set of best practices to adhere to. The team creates a backlog of user stories and manages the team’s work in sprints following the sprint planning ceremony. In this ceremony, the team creates the sprint goal, identifies the key features they’ll complete during the sprint, and then commits the sprint to their work. The sprint ends with a sprint review, where the team discusses their sprint and the Scrum Master gives feedback on the sprint goal and their process.

Differences Between Agile and Scrum

There are a few key differences between Agile and Scrum that you need to know about if you want to understand the differences between the two software development methods in more depth.

– A different approach – Agile and Scrum are both methods and neither method is better than the other. However, they’re two very different approaches to software development, so it’s important to understand the differences between them.

– Focus on features – Agile is a process that focuses on features. Scrum is a framework for managing the development process for features.

– Who owns the product – The focus of Agile is on the product, which could be a website, a mobile app, or a piece of software. The focus of Scrum is on the development team, which is responsible for delivering the product, which could be a certain number of features to a certain quality level.

– A more flexible approach – The focus of Agile is on flexibility. The focus of Scrum is on improving the development process.

– A shorter method – Scrum is a shorter method than Agile. It’s recommended that teams use Scrum for three to six month projects, while Agile can be used for longer periods of time.

Benefits of Scrum in Software Development

As a development process that focuses on features, Scrum has a number of benefits for software development teams that use it. These include:

– Better communication – The key to successful Scrum is clear communication. This means that everyone on the team needs to know what work they’re doing and why they’re doing it. This communication is key to building a productive team that can work together to deliver the features their customers are asking for.

– Better teamwork – The most successful Scrum teams are those that use a hybrid combination of hierarchical, management-style teams and more entrepreneurial, self-directed teams.

– Better quality – The best way to ensure that the features you deliver are of high quality is to deliver them incrementally. This means that every feature you complete goes through a number of tests to determine if it’s of high enough quality to move forward. This approach also ensures that there aren’t any critical bugs that could cause your software to crash or malfunction.

Final Words

There are many ways to approach the challenges of software development. The key is to find a method that works for you and your team. If you’re interested in finding out more about how to improve your development process, have a look at these resources.

– Best practices – Root Resources has a number of best practices for using Scrum that you can check out.

– Software engineering lessons – The computer science curriculum at Stanford University has a number of software engineering lessons you can check out to better understand the challenges of software development.

– More resources – There are a number of other Scrum tools and resources you can use to get better acquainted with the framework.