A Complete Guide on Scrum Software Development

Scrum is not just a methodology but actually, it is a framework. It is implemented to increase the speed and flexibility in software project management.

Therefore, it is one of the most used software development methodologies to create software.

Being a reputed software development company, we know that you have a lot of questions right now if you are looking to implement a scrum framework in your project. Don’t worry; we have explained everything briefly in this blog.

What is Scrum in Software Development?

The Scrum model is a six steps strategy the software development teams follow to create a high-quality software product. It includes creating product backlogs, sprint planning, sprint (development), daily scrum (meeting), sprint review, and sprint retrospective (improvement). It is a subset of agile software development.

It is not a prescriptive set of processes that you follow. However, it simply helps you outlook an overarching conceptual model so that you can add your own working methods that suit your unique situations best.

As per the ResearchGate study, the scrum methodology is one of the best methodologies used to increase the flexibility and speed of your project. So, when you want to develop software in a defined timeline, choosing this methodology helps.

Now that you know what scrum is, we will discuss how scrum works. We have written a step-by-step process that you can refer to discover the functioning of the scrum framework.

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How Scrum Works?

Scrum works when a team of developers comes together to address the complex problems of software development. Here is the process that developers follow for developing custom software.

1. Organize the Sprint Backlog

Product backlog grooming is the event that the product owner handles. Product backlog means a list of required functionalities and features for the product. The product owners’ primary responsibility is to drive the product towards its mission, along with taking care of the market trends and software requirement specifications shared by the clients.

Therefore, the product owner has to maintain a list of feedback collected from the users and the software development team to prioritize keeping the list clean and ready to be worked on at any given point in time.

2. Sprint Planning

During the sprint planning meeting, the scrum development team plans the work which needs to be performed during the current sprint. The scrum meeting is led by the scrum master, where everyone together decides on the sprint goal.

Also, some of the user stories are added to align with the goal and feasibly implemented during the sprint. At the end of the sprint planning, every team scrum member is clear about their work responsibility and knows how it can be delivered within the estimated timeline.

3. Sprint

The sprint is defined as the actual time period required to complete an increment. A sprint length typically requires 2 weeks. However, sometimes it might also require a week or more than a month to deliver a valuable increment.

Also, if required, then the scope is negotiated between the scrum development teams. From planning to retrospectives, every event that is performed has a consistent period throughout the development lifecycle so that the scrum teams learn from past experiences and apply strategies to future sprints.

4. Daily Scrum

It is a meeting that takes place every day in the morning to ensure the software development process is streamlined. Therefore, it is known as ‘daily stand-up’. This super-short meeting is organized for 15 minutes and needs to be a quick one.

The meeting takes place to ensure that everyone on the team has the same mission and is aligned with the sprint goal. Also, in this meeting, team members can share their concerns regarding the process or the sprint goal.

The best way to conduct a daily scrum meeting is to answer the following three questions to achieve the sprint goal:

• What did I do yesterday?
• What do I plan for today?
• Are there any challenges in the process?

5. Sprint Review

At the end of the sprint meeting, everyone gathers together to discuss the increment or demo of the scrum project. The team checks for the backlog items, which are now done for the stakeholders and teammates for feedback. Then, the further decision is taken by the product owner whether to release the increment or not.

6. Sprint Retrospective

At this stage of the retrospective, the team comes together to discuss the strategies and find out what worked and what didn’t work in a sprint. The idea behind having this discussion is to ensure that the team focuses on what went well for the project and what can be improved to reduce the timeline and save resources.

These were the 6-step-process that define how scrum works, where the software development teams meet to discuss and identify the critical strategies for achieving a task.

Now you must be interested to know more about the roles of a scrum team. Therefore, we have discussed the scrum roles in detail. So let’s dive in to find out the scrum roles.

What are the Scrum Roles?

A scrum team consists of three roles:

1. Product Owner
2. Scrum Master
3. Development Team

Additionally, as the scrum teams are cross-functional, the software development team structure also includes UX/UI designers, engineers, developers, and quality analysts. However, let’s discuss the main three roles of scrum in detail.

1. Product Owner

Product owners are responsible for managing their products and are focused on understanding market trends, business requirements, and user expectations. In addition, product owners make software development strategies and focus on getting work done with the help of the entire scrum team.

Here are the roles and responsibilities of a scrum product owner:

• Create and manage the product backlog
• Closely work with the client and the team to ensure everyone is on the same page and able to deliver the expected results according to work items in the product backlog
• Take a sprint meeting with the team to give clear guidance on which features to deliver next
• Deciding on the delivery timeline to ship the product

2. Scrum Master

A scrum master is the backbone of the scrum team. In addition, they are responsible for coaching the software development team and product owners. The scrum owner identifies the best software development practices to implement in the scrum development process and delivers the best software products.

A scrum master understands the work being done by the team and helps them to optimize the overall work process by enhancing transparency in the work and delivery flow. Being the facilitator-in-chief, the scrum master also schedules the required resources for the project, which includes sprint planning, stand-up meeting, sprint review, and sprint retrospective.

3. Software Development Team

The scrum team plays a major role in developing a high-end software solution. The team is aware of all the development practices that are used to build a software solution. A scrum team consists of 5-7 members, including experienced software developers.

Every team member has a different skill set and expertise and cross-trains the other team member to ensure the timely delivery of the software solution. The scrum team is also responsible for driving the plan for each sprint. The team needs to give an estimate on how much work they can complete in a given timeline.

A strong scrum team believes in a ‘we’ attitude and self-organizes their work. Each member of the team helps each other to ensure the successful delivery of the sprint.

If you want to learn in depth about the different roles in scrum team, read this blog post on different scrum roles.

Now let’s talk about the advantages of scrum and how it enhances the overall software development process.

Advantages of Scrum Model

Scrum is one of the popular software development methodologies that software developers use to move projects quickly. Here are the benefits that developers leverage to build software solutions.

• Each product produced by a sprint is ready to go to market even if the project is still ongoing. In the scrum, the team first addresses the highest priority requirements. This is how a high-quality and low-risk product can be launched in the market.
• With scrum, you get complete freedom to make your own decisions for the project.
• Scrum follows the incremental process that helps you shorten the time to market by 30-40%, making it easy for the product owners to deliver requirements in a timely manner.
• With scrum projects, you increase your chances of generating a higher return on investments because it decreases time to market, regular feedback resolves issues early on, and found defects are less costly and can be quickly handled.
• Reviewing takes place for each sprint before the team moves on to the next sprint event, which leads to testing throughout development.
• The goals of a project can be evolved or changed with the business goals.

After discussing the advantages of the scrum, let’s talk about some of the scrum’s limitations.

Disadvantages of Scrum Model

Even scrum has its own limitations and is not helpful to use for all software development projects. Here are the disadvantages of using scrum.

• Scrum works best with a small software development team who are experienced and able to manage work quickly.
• If the scrum master micromanages the team, then it is difficult to deliver the expected output.
• If you keep adding functionalities to the software, then there are high chances of developing threats for your own project. But, on the other hand, it could lead to a fixed deadline.
• Losing any team scrum member can hamper the progress of the software development project.

Still looking for more answers on scrum software development? Check the following FAQ section where we have answered the most asked questions related to scrum and scrum development methodology.

Develop Your Software with Scrum Methodology

With this guide, you learned that the scrum framework is easy to implement, and the rules, artifacts, scrum events, and roles are easy to understand. This approach really helps entrepreneurs to reduce software development challenges while giving enough space to add custom requirements.

With scrum, you get quick releases that help you keep going even if the project is not fully built. Therefore, scrum is a compelling framework that you need to adopt to gain long-term benefits.

However, if you need any help in implementing the scrum framework, contact us with your requirements. We will help you build full-fledged custom software using this compelling framework.