Agile in Action: How to Optimize Scrum for Your Projects

Agile and Scrum are far from new terms; they are familiar to almost all development field representatives. What may be new in these approaches is their original implementation for each team. The expression “everyone has their own Agile” has long ceased to be a joke since the flexibility of the methodology allows it to be adapted to the needs of the project. But is everything so good and carefree in Agile and Scrum, or should there be difficulties to discuss? We will discuss this further.

What you need to know about implementing Agile and Scrum

To begin with, Agile is a set of software development principles based on which solutions are developed. The team self-organizes through joint efforts, including the efforts of cross-functional teams. While Scrum is a framework that applies Agile principles, the main focus here is performing work within iterative cycles, also known as sprints. This is how Agile implementation looks like in general:

Three main points precede the implementation of Agile:

1. refusal to concentrate on deadlines;
2. defining the roles of people who participate in the team directly and indirectly;
3. processing objections from the development team who want to refrain from participating in Scrum ceremonies.

The team will likely need help moving from coherent work to the new system. Start gradually by becoming familiar with the Scrum ceremony, and then move on to reforming the current form of tasks and documentation at all levels.

Although logical, Agile should be taught to the team, and the task here lies with both the Scrum Master and the team. Don't forget that Agile is based on communication, so the tools you choose should help it remain effective: Jira, Trello, Asana, Slack, Microsoft Teams—it can be any of them.

A high-quality product can only become one with constant analysis of the work done and open dialogue. Agile can reveal communication and estimation problems and increase each team member's responsibility. However, this is only possible with a good understanding of the team, what they want from them, and what goals they set.

Difference Between Agile and Scrum

There often needs to be clarity about where the division between Agile and Scrum occurs. The difference is that Agile describes principles in the Agile Manifesto for creating software through iterative development. Still, Scrum is the rule that must be followed for everything defined in the Agile strategy to work. That is, Agile is a philosophy, and Scrum is the methodology for its implementation.

Agile and Scrum focus on delivering software early and often, with the entire process being flexible and able to handle change. Two other common traits are continuous improvement and transparency.

The main problems and difficulties of Agile and Scrum

Problems and Challenges of Agile:

As mentioned, Agile requires understanding, which is usually the main stumbling block for teams.

Other problems include:

• Problems with self-organization and desire to take responsibility for decisions.
• Difficulties in responding to changes and problems in prioritization.
• Lack of a clear vision of the product and its goals at all levels, from business to development

Solutions:

• Clearly define the responsibilities of each team member.
• Training the team, providing all materials, and conducting question-answer sessions.
• Creation of project documentation, stakeholder communication, and open project management processes.

Problems and difficulties of Scrum

Everyone in Scrum has roles: Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Team. If difficulties begin at this stage, returning to it and training the team again is necessary.

Other problems and difficulties include:

• Losing focus during ceremonies.
• Problems with scaling Scrum to teams of different sizes.
• Isolation of stakeholders from the product and development team.
• Problems with estimates and the amount of technical debt.

Solutions:

• Instructing the team the rules of the Scrum Ceremony and conveying the importance of following them.
• Strict adherence to Scrum rules, no matter how large the team grows.
• Schedule regular sessions between the team and stakeholders to demonstrate progress and receive feedback.
• Analysis of earlier estimates and constant collection of metrics. Essential metrics for assessing the success of Agile and Scrum

Capturing and tracking metrics is mandatory to improve Agile and Scrum implementation effectiveness. Only by understanding your weaknesses can you track them down and eliminate them.

Let's look at the main metrics:

• Velocity measures the amount of work done by a team in one sprint. The unit of measurement here is story points and/or tasks. This metric makes forecasting possible in addition to planning.
• Sprint Burndown Chart: This chart shows the team's progress on tasks relative to the time remaining in the sprint. It helps you understand the progress and any possible delays in advance.
• Release Burndown Chart: essentially the same as the Sprint Burndown Chart, but on a release scale.
• Cycle Time is a complete assessment of the time it takes for a task to complete. It evaluates the effectiveness of processes and forecasts task completion.
• Lead Time: the entire path from a task entering the backlog to completion. This metric allows you to improve processes and speed up delivery.
• Burnup Chart: Here, you can see the completed and remaining work on a project or release. This allows us to see deadlines and progress.
• Cumulative Flow Diagram: Here, you can see the entire list of tasks grouped by stage. The metric gives an understanding of the speed of work and problem areas.
• Defect Density: This calculates the number of defects per unit of work (for example, per 1000 lines of code or functional module). The goal of the metric is to understand weak points and eliminate them.
• Customer Satisfaction: the metric is collected based on reviews, surveys, and other feedback methods. Timely collected feedback will allow you to make timely adjustments and will work for your company’s reputation.
• Team Satisfaction: a human factors metric that allows you to quickly notice a decline in motivation and problems in the team that will affect development over time.
• Escaped Defects: This is a list of defects found after the product was released. It allows you to determine the effectiveness of testing and avoid problems in the future.
• Technical Debt: The estimate can be in tasks, time, or difficulty estimates. Understanding the volume of technical debt can help manage product risks.

Collecting metrics is a crucial success factor when implementing Agile and Scrum methodologies. Problems cannot be imagined; they must be clearly understood and eliminated. Unitecode teams have been using this methodology for a long time. We have conducted experiments to compare with others, for example, with Waterfall, but so far, we can say that Agile's flexibility could be better to beat.

Agile and Scrum Return on Investment (ROI) Analysis

Return on investment (ROI) for Agile and Scrum measures the increased financial efficiency from implementing these methodologies into the development process. This way, you can evaluate the cost-effectiveness of switching to a methodology relative to your current results.

Let's look at the main components of ROI analysis for Agile and Scrum.

1. Determination of costs. This may include training and certification of specialists, costs for tools, loss of efficiency at the time of team adaptation, and costs for external specialists.
2. Identification of benefits. There are two categories here: direct and indirect benefits. Direct ones include speeding up market entry, improving product quality, and improving team efficiency. Indirect benefits include reduced risks, increased team adaptability, and increased customer satisfaction.

How to calculate ROI correctly

ROI, in this case, is calculated using the formula:

Example:

• Costs for implementing Agile and Scrum: $100,000
• Benefits from implementation (in monetary terms): $150,000

[ \text{ROI} = \frac{150,000 - 100,000}{100,000} \times 100 \% = 50 \% ]

If you decide to adopt Agile and Scrum, you will need to repeat the calculation occasionally. You must also clearly understand any data related to the project's life, effectiveness, and even the mood of each team member.

Areas Of Application Of Agile And Scrum

Agile and Scrum do not have any specific restrictions on domains or team sizes. The methodology's flexibility determines its versatility in application areas. Let's consider several application options and benefits for each user case.

1. Software development: In addition to speeding up development processes, regular client feedback is added, which allows you to respond quickly to changes.
2. IT projects and infrastructure: infrastructure planning can become transparent and high-quality.
3. Marketing and product launches: Improved communication makes all iterations timely and eliminates unnecessary improvements.
4. Educational Projects: This methodology can increase student engagement and speed up the process of developing educational materials.
5. Research projects and innovation: flexibility allows for rapid testing of hypotheses and ideas, speeding up the development and launch cycle.

Conclusions And Forecasts

Agile and Scrum have moved past the stage of being a mysterious approach for a select few. Today, more and more companies and teams are seeing the benefits of adopting this methodology. Our specialists are familiar with Agile and suggest its implementation if it still needs to be used.

It should be noted that Agile and Scrum are influenced by the same technologies and trends that are changing the world around them. For example, artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) are already being used in forecasting in test mode, and their volumes will increase. In contrast, emotional intelligence is also increasingly being incorporated into practice by Scrum Masters and Agile teams, working with teams both on a professional and personal level.

Already, Scrum masters are becoming increasingly influential players in processes, which means that the methodology is developing and becoming part of a corporate culture aimed at maximum effect without losing the human essence.

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