Scrum
Definition
Scrum is an agile framework for managing and delivering complex product development work through short, fixed-length iterations called sprints, with defined roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, developers), ceremonies (planning, standup, review, retro), and artifacts (product backlog, sprint backlog, increment).
Scrum was created by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in the early 1990s and formalized in the first Scrum Guide in 2010. It's the most widely adopted agile framework in software development, though it has found application in marketing, hardware, and operations teams as well.
Scrum is deliberately lightweight. The Scrum Guide — the authoritative definition — is only a few pages. The framework specifies the minimum structure needed to enable empirical process control: transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
The three pillars of Scrum:
- Transparency — the process and its current state must be visible to everyone doing the work.
- Inspection — teams regularly inspect what they're doing against their goal.
- Adaptation — when inspection reveals something is off, the team adjusts.
Scrum roles:
- Product Owner — owns the backlog, sets priority, represents the customer.
- Scrum Master — facilitates the process, removes impediments, coaches the team.
- Developers — the people building the product.
Scrum ceremonies:
- Sprint planning, daily standup, sprint review, sprint retrospective.
Scrum artifacts:
- Product backlog, sprint backlog, product increment.
Sprints are the heartbeat of Scrum — typically one to four weeks, most commonly two weeks. Each sprint produces a potentially shippable product increment.
Scrum doesn't specify engineering practices (unlike XP, which includes TDD and pair programming). Teams layer practices like CI/CD and code review on top of Scrum's skeleton.
Examples
- Software startup runs two-week Scrum sprints with a team of five developers, one PO, and one Scrum Master
- Marketing team adopts Scrum for campaign planning — weekly sprints instead of project waterfall
- Hardware team uses Scrum for firmware development, with physical task board and three-week sprints
- Distributed team runs Scrum with async standups and bi-weekly remote planning sessions
- Company scales from one Scrum team to five, adopts LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) to coordinate
Related terms
Snap a scrum. Ship its actions.
BoardSnap turns any whiteboard — including this one — into a summary and action plan.