Scrum: Rugby for Agile Software Development
Software development is often a fast and furious project, so scrum is an ideal tool for those rapidly changing requirements. It’s not a methodology or a process, but rather a framework. You don’t get detailed descriptions of how everything is being done on your project.
In scrum, it’s all up to your software development team. Because the project is theirs, they will know how to solve the problem. And this is why the sprints become valuable with their shorter time periods.
Scrum is unique in that there is no team leader who assigns the who-does-what in the project. The entire team solves any problems that arise. Because the team is essentially cross-functional, everyone takes a feature from idea to implementation.
Much like scrum in rugby, there are three important roles in scrum for agile project development. There is the ScrumMaster, the product owner, and the scrum team. Like rugby has a scrum, the ScrumMaster serves to work as a coach for the project team, cheering as it were so that all involved work to their best. This role differs from the traditional project manager in that it does not give day-to-day instruction to the team and also doesn’t assigns individual project tasks to team members. The ScrumMaster acts as a buffer to protect the team against distractions.
This enables the team to focus on the area that was selected in the sprint.
The product owner represents those who the software is being built for: the customer, their business, and end-users. The product owner also makes sure that the scrum product backlog is monitored as the product is being built.
