• Agile and scrum are two similar project management systems with a few key differences.
• Agile is more flexible and promotes leadership teams, while scrum is more rigid and promotes cross-functional teams.
• Agile lets teams develop projects in small increments called “sprints” and allows for more effective collaborations among teams working on complex projects.
• This article is for business owners and project managers who want to learn more about agile scrum methodology and how to implement it as a management process.

Agile scrum methodology is used by companies of all sizes for its ability to provide high-end collaboration and efficiency for project-based work. Agile and scrum are two different methods and can be used separately; however, their combined benefits make the agile scrum methodology the most popular use of agile. Here’s the complete guide to agile scrum methodology.

Did you know? Agile and scrum can be used separately, but their combined benefits make the methodology popular.

How does agile scrum work?

Agile scrum methodology is the combination of the agile philosophy and the scrum framework. Agile means “incremental, allowing teams to develop projects in small increments. Scrum is one of the many types of agile methodology, known for breaking projects down into sizable chunks called “sprints.” Agile scrum methodology is good for businesses that need to finish specific projects quickly.

Agile scrum methodology is a project management system that relies on incremental development. Each iteration consists of two- to four-week sprints, where the goal of each sprint is to build the most important features first and come out with a potentially deliverable product. More features are built into the product in subsequent sprints and are adjusted based on stakeholder and customer feedback between sprints.

Whereas other project management methods emphasize building an entire product in one operation from start to finish, agile scrum methodology focuses on delivering several iterations of a product to provide stakeholders with the highest business value in the least amount of time.

Agile scrum methodology has several benefits. First, it encourages products to be built faster, since each set of goals must be completed within each sprint’s time frame. It also requires frequent planning and goal setting, which helps the scrum team focus on the current sprint’s objectives and increase productivity.

What is agile?

Agile is a process that allows a team to more efficiently manage a project by breaking it down into several stages, each of which allows for consistent collaboration with stakeholders to promote steady improvements at every stage.

Key takeaway: Agile lets a team manage a project more efficiently by breaking it down into several stages.

What are the values of agile?

Agile was first described in the Agile Manifesto in 2000 by a group of developers who sought out a new method of writing software. The manifesto cites four values:

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan

What are the 12 principles of agile?

The Agile Manifesto also enacted 12 principles in reference to software development and was later reconfigured to fit a wider perspective of users:

1. Customer satisfaction
2. Early and continuous delivery
3. Embrace change
4. Frequent delivery
5. Collaboration of businesses and developers
6. Motivated individuals
7. Face-to-face conversation
8. Functional products
9. Technical excellence
10. Simplicity
11. Self-organized teams
12. Regulation, reflection and adjustment

What is scrum?

In short, scrum is a framework for effective collaborations among teams working on complex products. Scrum is a type of agile technology that consists of meetings, roles, and tools to help teams working on complex projects collaborate and better structure and manage their workload. Although it is most often used by software development teams, scrum can be beneficial to any team working toward a common goal.

Who can benefit from scrum?

While scrum can be useful for a wide variety of businesses and projects, these are the most likely beneficiaries:

• Complicated projects: Scrum methodology is ideal for projects that require teams to complete a backlog. Scrum breaks down each process into bite-sized chunks that can make a complex project easier.

• Companies that value results: Scrum is also beneficial to companies that value results over the documented progress of the process. This is because scrum is focused on efficiency and innovation to drive results, rather than a detailed, rigid process.

• Companies that cater to customers: Scrum can help companies that develop products in accordance with customer preferences and specifications. Scrum is adaptable to change, making it key when responding to customer requests.

What are the benefits of agile scrum methodology?

These are some of the collective benefits of agile scrum methodology:

• Flexibility and adaptability
• Creativity and innovation
• Lower costs
• Quality improvement
• Organizational synergy
• Employee satisfaction
• Customer satisfaction

The greatest benefit of agile scrum methodology is its flexibility. With the sprint-based model, the scrum team typically receives feedback from stakeholders after each sprint. If there are any problems or changes, the scrum team can easily and quickly adjust product goals during future sprints to provide more valuable iterations. This way, stakeholders are happier because they get exactly what they want after being involved every step of the way.

Compare this with traditional project management systems, in which stakeholders do not provide frequent feedback and time is wasted making changes to the product halfway through development – or worse, such as the teams needing to start from scratch after the product has already been built.

To implement agile scrum methodology, there must be either a scrum expert in the company or an outside consultant to ensure scrum principles are being applied correctly. Agile scrum methodology involves precise execution and could result in serious problems if not done properly.

Tip: To implement agile scrum, you’ll need an expert in your company or an outside consultant.

What are the different roles in agile scrum methodology?

Agile scrum methodology consists of two sets of roles: core roles, known as “pigs,” and ancillary roles, known as “chickens.”

There are three core roles: scrum master, product owner and scrum team. All of these people are committed to the scrum project.

1. Scrum master: The scrum master is the facilitator of the scrum development process. In addition to holding daily meetings with the scrum team, the scrum master makes certain that scrum rules are being enforced and applied as intended. The scrum master’s responsibilities also include coaching and motivating the team, removing impediments to sprints, and ensuring that the team has the best possible conditions to meet its goals and produce deliverable products.

2. Product owner: The product owner represents stakeholders, who are typically customers. To ensure the scrum team is always delivering value to stakeholders and the business, the product owner determines product expectations, records changes to the product and administers a scrum backlog, a detailed and constantly updated to-do list for the scrum project. The product owner is also responsible for prioritizing goals for each sprint, based on their value to stakeholders, such that the most important and deliverable features are built in each iteration.

3. Scrum team: The scrum team is a self-organized group of three to nine individuals who have the business, design, analytical and development skills to carry out the actual work, solve problems and produce deliverable products. Members of the scrum team self-administer tasks and are jointly responsible for meeting each sprint’s goals.

Ancillary roles, on the other hand, are other stakeholders who are involved in, but not committed to, the scrum project. Typically, ancillary roles consist of customers, management and members of the executive team who are involved for the purpose of consulting, reporting progress and gathering feedback to better work toward delivering the highest value possible.

What is the training for scrum and agile?

Managers and employees can enroll in training for both agile and scrum through various online and in-person courses. Many educational training courses result in certification in agile or scrum methodologies. Agile training provides the trainee with the basic knowledge of agile and how to implement it to the rest of their team. Scrum provides similar training, including the basic agile overview; however, the training caters to the scrum framework.

To become a certified scrum master (CSM) or certified scrum product owner (CSPO), you must first prepare and learn the basic details of scrum through videos or a simple internet search. Next, find a suitable CSM or CSPO course, either through your workplace or another internet search. Once you’ve completed the course, you usually have to pass an exam to become certified. After certification, you’re able to lead your team through the scrum process or provide scrum product details.

What are the differences between scrum and agile?

Although scrum and agile are similar, they have some key differences:

• Scrum values rigidity, whereas agile is more flexible.
• Agile leaders play a vital role, while scrum promotes a cross-functional team that is self-functioning.
• Agile involves face-to-face interactions between cross-functional team members, while scrum involves daily stand-up meetings.
• Agile is meant to be kept simple, while scrum can be innovative and experimental.
• Scrum delivers shorter, separate projects, while agile delivers everything at the end of the process.

Sara Angeles contributed to the writing and research in this article.

Job Description
Senior Scrum Masters are leaders, facilitators, and coaches for an Agile Team. Leads a team in Agile, Scrum, and SAFe principles, ensuring that the agreed Agile practices are being followed.

Qualifications & Experience
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Commerce, or Information Systems.
8 – 10 years’ experience in project/software delivery.
Familiarity and experience in Agile/Scrum/Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
Certification as a Scrum Master Certified SAFe® Advanced Scrum * Master or Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM) or Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) .
Knowledge of Kanban/Lean
Knowledge and experience in using tracking and collaboration tools such as Jira, Miro and TFS.
* Knowledge and experience with typically used Agile techniques such as User Stories, ATDD, TDD, etc.

Desired Skills:

• Agile
• SAFE
• kanban
• lean
• ATDD
• TDD

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How pervasive is open source software? Extremely pervasive. Is it getting any easier to work with? Not much easier, sorry.

That's the prognosis of a accurate survey of 872 IT managers, which finds eight in 10 companies employ open source software. 

However, using freely available and low-cost or no-cost licensed software only solves part of the problem -- there is still the challenge of securing the software, as well as having the skills and support to maintain and run it effectively. 

More than 40% of technology managers say security and compliance are an issue with open source. 

Nearly 40% of teams using open source lack the internal skills to test, use, or integrate that software. 

Also: Tech jobs are changing. Here are the real skills you'll need to get promoted

The survey, from OpenLogic and by Perforce and the Open Source Initiative (OSI), finds skills and support to be the main stumbling blocks across all categories of open source solutions, from operating systems to databases to development tools. 

Top challenges with open source software include the following: 

• Maintaining security policies and compliance: 42%.  
• Lack of skills, experience, or proficiency: 38%.
• Keeping up with updates and patches: 37%.
• Lack of low-level technical support: 36%.
• Maintaining end-of-life support: 36%.

The most "business-critical" open source software in use today, managers say, is Linux, Apache HTTP, Git, Node.js, WordPress, Tomcat, Jenkins, PHP, and Nginx. "Software in general has become business-critical for many organizations, and consequently open source software are key pieces of their digital infrastructure," the survey's authors state. "More mature organizations acquire expertise in these key technologies, and recognize the importance of being part of communities to participate in the innovation coming from open source."

Also: The best Linux laptops for consumers and developers

Containers and container orchestration technology, together with software development lifecycle tools,
are the most invested-in and most commonly used open source technologies, the survey also shows.  

While still in the minority, there appear to be more organizations contributing back to the open source pot, the survey shows. At least 37% of organizations now contribute to open source, which includes contributions to open source projects or to open source organizations (code or other activities). This is a five percent increase from last year. 

The top activity, selected by 46%, was performing security scans to identify vulnerabilities in open source packages.
"This highlights that there is more open security awareness and a variety of tools (open source and commercial) that can help organizations make security scans part of their software development lifecycle," the survey's authors report. "Along similar lines, it's also promising to see open source security policies or compliance in the top three, since defining external or internal compliance processes is a marker of open source maturity." 

Looking ahead over the next 18 months, technologies on peoples' radar screens include artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning (all a single category), which edged Kubernetes from its number-one spot in last year's survey. Other technologies seen as important in the near future include virtual reality or augmented reality. 

Cloud-native open source technologies are also a hot commodity, showing "significant adoption in organizations of all types and sizes," the survey finds. Container-based deployments are on the rise, coinciding with an increase in open source tools designed to support cloud-native environments. For example, Kubernetes usage increased by five percent in the past year; with 23% of the votes, it is now the third most used cloud-native technology. Just about every cloud-native technology grew over the last 12 months. Projects in the observability space, such as OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, and Prometheus, are also being adopted at a particularly rapid pace.

Programming languages continue to be the open source entry point for thousands of software developers. As seen in last year's survey, JavaScript and Python continue to be the leaders but only show a modest one-to-two-point increase in usage across industries. For the second year in a row, the three most popular open source Java runtimes are OpenJDK, OpenJ9, and Oracle Java. Oracle Java usage declined by four points from last year's survey, while OpenJDK and OpenJ9 remained stable.

Also: The most popular programming languages and where to learn them

There's more action in terms of open source automation and configuration tools for DevOps. Just two years ago, nearly 50% of respondents said they were not using any technologies in this category -- now only 12% are not using them. The adoption of open source continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery and deployment (CD) tools, particularly cloud-native CI and CD tools, is also on the rise. On the whole, tools that run natively in containers (Jenkins X, Spinnaker, and Tekton) saw a boost in usage this year. 

Containers and container orchestration technology continue to gain adoption, with a significant increase in usage -- 33% this year versus 18% last year. Just over one-third of companies, 34%, now use open source software development life cycle (SDLC) tools, and 22% work with open source content management solutions.

Pratt Institute School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS) will host a range of free virtual information sessions on Zoom regarding its course offerings  throughout the coming weeks. Please check this page for updates.

SCPS offers programs and certificates aimed at professional development, personal enrichment, and supplementary skill-building that enhances existing professional pursuits.

Information session presenters include Pratt SCPS instructors and program directors with extensive expertise and professional experience in their respective disciplines. Sessions will include plenty of time for questions and answers. Registration is free and easy on Eventbrite. And, attendance on Zoom is always free.

We look forward to you joining us very soon!

If you have any questions, please contact prostudy@pratt.edu.

Image courtesy of Fiona Szende.

TL;DR: The 2023 Agile and Scrum Master Certification Training Bundle(Opens in a new tab) is on sale for £32.27, saving you 97% on list price.

Project management isn’t just one skill. It’s a process of interacting with a goal and a team who can accomplish it, and one of the most popular methodologies is called Scrum, a framework for project management that uses Agile principles. If you want to master Agile and Scrum and prepare for managerial and administrative roles in the future, you could start with the 2023 Agile and Scrum Master Certification Training Bundle(Opens in a new tab). Study the principles of project management through a popular framework in these seven courses on sale for £32.27.

If this is your first exposure to Agile and Scrum, then you may want to start with Agile in a Nutshell to get a sense of the fundamentals. Start studying the foundational principles of Agile Project Management and Scrum meetings in this course led by Dejan Majkic from Skill Success. Majkic is a digital entrepreneur and trainer with more than 50 international IT certifications, and he’s the instructor for each course in this bundle. That doesn’t mean you’re stuck working on another person’s schedule, though. All course content is available to you for life, so you can learn at your own pace. 

Each course focuses on some skills or principles integral to effective Agile planning or Scrum management. There’s even a course on risk management that could help you define potential risks, assess them, and create contingencies. These skills could help you land your next admin-level job, and the course on landing a Scrum Master Job without experience could help you even more. 

If you’re new to the concept, Agile and Scrum may sound intimidating, but they’re just tools that could help you thrive in positions that require complex planning and collaboration. For a limited time, get the 2023 Agile and Scrum Master Certification Training Bundle(Opens in a new tab) for £32.27. 

Coinciding with Sean Payton’s first year as the head coach of the Saints, the NFL changed the rules to allow a runner to be pushed by a teammate. As Payton commences his first year as head coach of the Broncos, some teams finally have embraced the rule as a device for strategic advantage.

Payton, who finished his one-year stint with Fox during Super Bowl LVII, told Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino that Payton will make regular use of the ability to shove a runner from behind, until the rule is changed.

“I think the league is going to look at this, and I’d be shocked if they don’t make a change,’’ Blandino said in an item posted on The33rdTeam.com.

“I was talking to Sean Payton during Sunday’s game, and he said we’re going to do this every time next season if they don’t take it out,’’ Blandino added. “It amounts to a rugby scrum. The NFL wants to showcase the athleticism and skill of our athletes. This is just not a skillful play. This is just a tactic that is not an aesthetically pleasing play, and I think the Competition Committee is going to take a look at it.’’

Previously, pushing the runner happened spontaneously, in the open field. It’s not part of play design, with the Eagles perfecting the tactic. It was rarely called.

And so the rule might go back to what it was in 2005 and previously. The best compromise could be to outline pushing a runner only while inside the tackle box. Presumably, no one would be able to design a play that incorporates deliberate shoving outside the tackles.

Surely, however, someone would try.

England's forwards coach Richard Cockerill says the team has sought advice from referees on their “reckless” scrum.

Steve Borthwick's side looked to officials as after discovering they won just 85 per cent of their own scrums last year, which was the worst of any tier one nation.

Cockerill said feedback from leading referees, including Wayne Barnes, suggested their scrum was “ill-disciplined and a bit reckless”.

“We’ve taken lots of input from the officials because that has not been as good a relationship as we would have liked and we have worked on fixing it,” he said.

“The boys have worked hard. We have got a good pack of forwards, we have got some good personnel, and it is just keeping them honest and working them harder than we probably did previously.”

England, who are sixth in the world rankings, have won all 11 of own their scrums so far this Six Nations but not everything has been positive for the team.

They lost to Scotland in round one and, despite beating Italy in the second round, are facing criticism for their attacking play.

Wales are next in the tournament for England if the game goes ahead. The fixture have been put in doubt amid reports Wales players could threaten to strike due to ongoing contract disputes with the Wales Rugby Union.

If the game goes ahead as planned, Cockerill expects the Welsh team to come out fighting.

“I think if anything it will probably galvanise them because they have their issues,” Cockerill said.

“I don’t really understand what the politics of it is, but from my experience, any hardship with a playing group generally brings them tighter together.

We are looking for a Scrum Master with a minimum of 5 years’ experience as an Agile Project Manager or Scrum Master within an Agile environment.
A Certified Scrum Master (PSM or CSM) preferred.
Must have solid experience and understanding of the Scrum principles; Proven experience within a Product Driven and Custom Development environment. Experience in he automotive industry is beneficial.

Hybrid work model – will be required to travel to the office at least 3 times a week.

Desired Skills:

• Certified Scrum Master (PSM or CSM)
• Scrum Principles
• Automotive Industry Beneficial
• Agile Environment
• Product Driven and Custom Development Environment

Learn more/Apply for this position