Agile Development with Scrum

A practitioner of Scrum describes it as a "hyper-productivity technique." Scrum increases the relevant productivity (that productivity that generates used products) far beyond popular and expensive fads. Scrum is not an acronym. First used to describe hyper-productive development in 1987 by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, Scrum refers to the mechanism used in rugby for getting an out-of-play ball back into play. Scrum generates productivity improvements by implementing a framework that empowers teams and thrives on change. A set of rules and corresponding terminology are used to reinforce such common sense techniques as small teams, daily status meetings, not interrupting people who are working, and a single source of work prioritization. Scrum's two pillars are team empowerment and adaptability : Team empowerment : Once teams are given work to do, they are responsible for figuring out how to do it. The team does the best it can during each increment. While a team works, their only interaction with management is to tell management what is getting in their way and needs to be removed to improve their productivity. Adaptability : Scrum uses "punctuated equilibrium". The team maintains an equilibrium during each increment, insulated from outside disturbance. Increments are punctuated every thirty days so that the team and management can evaluate what should be done during the next increment; this decision is based on what the team has accomplished and what the environment dictates is the next most important thing to do. Once Scrum is underway, teams and management find it easy to focus, every request is easily evaluated by, "What's that got to do with delivering the code?"