Is Scrum the best invention for Computer Science ?

For development in modern world we can’t jump to the waterfall model directly but instead we have to go to waterfall in iteration and Scrum is one of the methodologies which works on this principle. What is Scrum ?
Scrum is nothing but a lightweight framework which is simple to understand and is a better way of building products. Over 90% of estimated agile team uses scrum, and the best thing is it has only one scrum guide.

Suppose you need to create your own version of Reddit. For this you can’t just start making the end product which may take an year to complete and make someone wait for this much of long period. But in scrum you take some major requirements like news feed, chat window at a time and some side requirements for later. Scrum normally goes with sprint.

Sprint : A sprint is a period of 1 or 2 or 4 weeks in which you have to give an increment to the client.

Increment : It is the potentially shippable product given to the client.

Below is the diagrammatic representation of Scrum in action. Let’s try to understand it in brief.

Scrum methodology

Product Backlog : Product Backlog consists of all the requirements which may or may not be present in their broken down form to build the product. The team takes some requirements from the product backlog for each sprint to work upon.

Sprint Planning : In this phase the team plans what to take from the product backlog for a particular sprint.

Sprint backlog : It is the backlog of the requirements taken from the product backlog for the current sprint which can be further broken down into sub requirements.

Scrum Team : The scrum team should be cross-functional i.e. same person can perform developer’s tasks, testing and designing and can work independently in the absence of a team member.

Daily Scrum : It is a daily standup meeting for like 15–20 minutes in which the team discusses their tasks which they have to perform so that they don’t get interrupted in between of their work for meetings.

After producing the increment the team does sprint review which basically is an informal meeting with stakeholders,product owner, scrum master and development team and in which they determine the progress with a demo and before going to the next sprint they perform sprint retrospection.

Sprint Retrospection : In Sprint retrospection the team discusses what worked well, what can be improved, what will they should commit to be doing in the next sprint and the team members also put their comments on all these things.

If all tasks are not done in a particular sprint from the sprint backlog then the team can take these tasks to the next sprint. To manage all this we need a Scrum master. The scrum master protects the team from outside interruptions & distractions, creates an environment for his team to work effectively and cleans all the obstacles for them to ensure the efficiency. There are n number of reasons as to why Scrum is considered to be the best but in a nutshell below points explain it all -

• It helps team work together and learn through experiences. Also team is self-organising which gives a plus and while working on a problem the team can reflect on their wins and losses to continuously improve.
• Flexibility is the major thing which makes scrum the best because if there are any problems or changes required in the product then the scrum team can easily and quickly adjust product goals for the future sprints to produce more valuable iterations.
• Scrum is simple. Rules, events, artifacts and roles are very easy to understand

Hence, Scrum’s success in industry has proved it to be hottest and one of the most enthralling frameworks in the industry. Thus making it to be one of the best inventions for Computer Science.