// Coding
What is the Difference Between Scrum and Agile Methodology
// Coding
Scrum and Agile are flexible methodologies that are used in the management of IT projects. Let's see, what concepts they have and what is the difference between us.
Agile is a philosophy based on values and principles that are described in the manifesto. This approach is flexible and completely the opposite of the heavy Waterfall.
Agile has only 4 values, the essence of which is as follows:
1. Direct communication with people is more important than tools.
2. A product that really functions is more important than a detailed specification.
3. Direct communication with customers is more important than the details of the contract.
4. It is meaningless to follow the original plan, it is necessary for everyone to be ready to change the course of events and demands.
Also, Agile has 12 principes. They can be read on the official website. I will only point out the ones that really make Agile so popular.
The first and most important thing is that changes can occur daily and therefore you need to be dynamic and ready for a quick reaction. At the same time, a documentation has minimal changes. It should be noted immediately that, in view of this principle, Agile isn't suitable for large projects (SaaS application, e-commerce websites) with tight deadlines and budget.
Secondly, strong communication improves the quality of work and makes tasks predictable. I recommend holding daily meetings and reporting on results, issues. They discipline the work and allow a clear schedule of work.
Let's now take a closer look at what is the Scrum. This methodology has a specific set of roles (professionals). So you need to hire developers, team lead, product owner (PO) and Scrum master (SM). The product owner links the team and the client. He manages the Product Backlog, which consists of cards ("Stories", "Bugs", "Task"). They are prioritized (highest, high, medium, low) and help to structure of the work.
Scrum-master is called to help organize the development process: appoints and conducts meetings, solves daily issues, motivates the team and makes sure that the principles of Scrum are observed.
The first and the main point, all phases of development are divided into equal intervals of time - sprints, with an average duration of 1 to 3 weeks. The duration of the iteration depends on the team and the complexity of the project.
Before the iteration starts, the tasks from the backlog to the current sprint are transferred (Sprint Planning Meeting). The results can be analyzed after the sprint is completed (Sprint Review).
Sprints are often compared among themselves, in order to improve the effectiveness of work (Retrospective). Also during the Sprint there is another process - the Daily Meeting, where the team discusses what they did, what they plan to do, and what kind of issues they can expect.
The effectiveness of Scrum is measured by the time during which the card from "To do" transferred to "Done". The less - the better, if more - then it is necessary to react and take actions to optimize the work.
Scrum is well suited for managing a self-organizing team through web development trends. Using this methodology, independence, responsibility is brought up. Everyone has his own role and scope of the work.
Visual boards play an important role in flexible methodologies (Agile frameworks). Physical or online - it does not matter. Both types make it easy to analyze information for all team members. And this is extremely important in the absence of a project manager, which is not provided in this philosophy at all.
There are several Agile-frameworks that help apply philosophy/theory in practice. Btw, the framework is a set of rules, that help you set up work on the project according to the principles and values of Agile. So the list of agile-frameworks or methodologies:
-XP
-DSDM
-FDD
-LEAN
-KANBAN
-SCRUM
Earlier we already wrote about the difference between Scrum and Kanban. All frameworks mean an iterative development process, where the completion of each iteration is updating the requirements from the Customer and implementing them through a self-organizing team that includes back-end and front-end developers, QA-engineers, designers, HTML coders, and others.
As you can see, Agile and Scrum are two different types that are united by one goal, increasing the productivity of process management. You can add more flexibility to Scrum methodology using Agile. For example, our company Merehead, in development uses Scrum&Agile. We link two methodologies and get a good performance. In my opinion, Scrum with Agile principles have great advantages.
