Software development refers to a set of activities consisting of creating, designing, deploying, and maintaining software. This is a complex process that needs many people involved, even just producing simple software. Basically, a development team includes programmers, software engineers, software developers, and a project manager. While a group is needed to produce the final outcome together, efficient teamwork is indispensable. To make sure that the team works together in great harmony, they should set the rules of working. At MOR Software, we have applied the SCRUM framework for a long time to enhance our teamwork’s effectiveness. Let’s dive into why we choose this framework.

What is Scrum?

“Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams, and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.”

– From Scrum guide –

Scrum is a rigorous framework. Each element serves a specific purpose contributing to the final outcome. In a nutshell, scrum provides theory and practices that guide how a team self-organizes to work on a problem. Scrum theory is built on empiricism and lean thinking. Consequently, this framework encourages team members to learn through their real-life experiences and reflect on their successes and failures to continuously improve.

Scrum operates upon the collective intelligence of the people using it so it perfectly matches with a development team that produces a product together. Additionally, scrum is affected by the Agile manifesto, which stands the view of technological fields, especially software development. Therefore, scrum is the most frequent framework used by software development teams. 

Scrum guide defines team rules and working rules such as a set of meetings, tools, and member roles. Because the purpose of scrum is to build a framework for teamwork, these principles and practices can be applied to all kinds of teamwork such as marketing, sales, and customer success with modification. 

Top reasons to use scrum in software development

Scrum enables rapid response to changes in customer’s requirements 

If using the waterfall model, customers need to clarify all requirements before implementing software development. Because it is a linear, sequential approach. These projects often have specific documentation, fixed requirements, and ample resources. The timelines and technology also need to define clearly at the beginning. Therefore, changes may affect the whole development process and everyone often avoid change.

However, in our dynamic environment, change is normal and obvious. Therefore, scrum underneath the agile manifesto gains more and more advantages. In scrum, a product is built in a series of fixed-length iterations called sprints. Instead of delivering a “big bag” lunch at the final stage as the waterfall model, in the scrum, an agile team will separate a big project into small but consumable increments and then deliver these values on a regular cadence. Requirements, plans, and results are evaluated continuously and frequently so this team has a natural mechanism for quickly responding to change. As a result, with the scrum framework, customers may make some changes to their requirements.

In addition, scrum teams regularly and pro-actively invite customers to inspect significant increments. Hence, they will know the progress of software development and give feedback or request changes. This invariably leads to satisfied customers. Because they go along and make adjustments to the development process. The output obviously meets their expectations.

Scrum reduces the production time of a higher-quality product

People often said that they actually need less than they imagine at the beginning. It means that the requirements of customers may include unnecessary parts. Consequently, developers may create useless functions. 

However, the scrum framework can minimize the above problem. By inviting stakeholders such as managers and customers to the review meeting each sprint, the external can immediately adjust requirements if needed. Since everyone focuses on the essential features, development time will save maximally. 

In addition, the team also defines the definition of done before implementation so quality does not suffer. They also ensure and review the quality when releasing each increment. When each piece is fine and combined closely, the whole picture definitely qualifies. 

Scrum teams own the required skills to produce a complete software product

A scrum team has 3 roles: a product owner, a scrum master, and developers. This is a self-managing and cross-functional unit that can develop independently a software product. This team works autonomously so normally there are less than 10 people in a team to make sure effectiveness. 

They pro-actively set up a team so they certainly know their capabilities. Therefore, the team can decide whether they can handle a development project or not. Due to team members being nearly fixed during production, the team often calls support or adds experts when setting up. 

Consequently, a scrum team will self-control their process and operate autonomously. Even though the company may lack the human resources to produce a new product, it still rarely affects this team. Hence, we rarely find a failed scrum team that can’t complete a production. Mostly, a scrum team delivers comprehensive software products on time.

Scrum enhances communication and collaboration

When a group of people makes a product together, communication and collaboration are crucial. Each person may have independent tasks but all tasks contribute to one final product. Additionally, tasks of Mr. A may affect tasks of Mr. B. Therefore, it’s essential to know the progress of all team members. That’s the reason why developers need to practice daily standup meetings. 

To reduce the time-consuming and complexity, the duration of each daily meeting is limited to 15 minutes at the same time and place. It happens every working day of sprints. To ensure the meeting to brief and has no distractions, everyone stands and reports to each other about 3 questions: things that have been done since the last daily standup, things that will do before the next meeting, and any impediments that are faced. When each member of the scrum team understands others’ jobs, they can collaborate and support each other easily. 

On the other hand, scrum not only cares about communication between team members but also between the scrum team and external stakeholders such as clients, managers, and investors… External stakeholders can intend sprint planning meetings, sprint retrospective meetings, and sprint review meetings. They will be updated on the progress of the development project. They also can give comments or recommendations or make adjustments. Since every side has a chance to raise their voice, the misunderstanding will minimize. Everything becomes transparent and up-to-date.

Scrum improves personnel satisfaction and commitment

Scrum is designed for a self-organize team so they can work autonomously within a corporate. They don’t wait for someone to assign tasks. They can deal with other members to get tasks, which want to do. The team also gets ownership of their work. These things will increase their pride and lead to satisfaction. 

Since the scrum team is self-controlled and transparent, each member knows their roles and responsibilities with the team. They understand the consequence if their task is not completed by themselves. As a result, their commitment will be higher. 

Conclusion

In short, scrum is an agile framework that is widely used in software development. The core concept is to address complex problems through regular increments and flexible solutions. Therefore, it responds quickly to changes while delivering on-time a high-quality product. A scrum team is self-controlled so they work autonomously and own the capacity to complete a software project. Since team members are hugely empowered, their satisfaction and commitment get higher. Besides, the scrum framework includes fixed meetings to secure that internal and external participants don’t misunderstand, are up-to-date, and collaborate closely. 

For the strong reasons above, MOR Software chooses to work based on the scrum framework. To make sure employees correctly understand and practice the scrum framework, BOD of MOR Software encourages people to learn and get Professional Scrum Master (PSM) certificate. Within the first half year of 2022, the number of MOR members passing the PSM examination increased by 48 people. This is strong evidence to prove the effort of MOR’s workforce in standardizing the process and providing high-quality services.

If you are looking for technology solutions to upgrade your management system, please contact MOR Software via email at business@morsoftware.com for consulting and support.

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