Let's talk about Agile/Scrum

Currently, Scrum is one of the most popular "methodologies" for software development. According to the definition, Scrum is a development framework, with which people can solve emerging problems while being productive and producing products of the highest importance.

This indicates that in Scrum it is impossible to find answers to all questions and instructions to action in all situations (for example, in the official Scrum description, only the need to estimate the time needed to perform a job is specified, but the type of evaluation is not specified. it can be a planning poker and another way of estimating). Thus, the very name of the topic is not true :)

When they talk about the Scrum methodology, they often have in mind a flexible software development methodology built on the rules and practices of Scrum.

The authors of Scrum stated the following features:
-Easy (English Lightweight)
-Ready, affordable
-Difficult in mastering (pretty controversial,huh?)

In the classical Scrum there are 3 basic roles:
-Product owner
-Scrum master
-Development team

The product owner (PO) is the link between the development team and the customer. The goal of PO is to maximize the value of the product being developed and the work of the team.

One of the main tools of PO is Product Backlog. Product Backlog contains the necessary work tasks (such as Story, Bug, Task, etc.), sorted in order of priority (urgency).

Scrum master (SM) is the "servant leader" (English servant-leader). The task of Scrum Master is to help the team maximize its effectiveness by eliminating obstacles, helping, training and motivating the team, assisting the PO

The development team (DT) consists of specialists who directly work on the product. According to The Scrum Guide (a document that is an official description of Scrum from its authors), DT should have the following qualities and characteristics:
-Be self-organizing. Nobody (including SM and PO) can tell the team how to convert Product Backlog to a running product
-By multifunctional, have all the necessary skills to produce a working product
-For the work performed, the whole team is responsible, not individual team members

The recommended team size is 7 (plus or minus 2) people. According to Scrum ideologists, larger teams require too much resources for communication, while smaller teams increase risks (due to possible lack of required skills) and reduce the amount of work a team can perform per unit of time.

Thesis number 1. Agile is needed to show the client the result in a short time

For this, a large project is divided into segments (iterations) with a length of 1 to 4 weeks, at the end of each of which the client must receive a working product. After receiving feedback from the client, the product with each new iteration becomes better and more valuable to the client. For example, the deputy director of the information service of the State of Washington, Michael de Angelo, said that every week they send practical plans to all state institutions in their region. The task - regularly in 7 days, even in small steps, but something to change for the better. The service issues a potentially ready product, which institutions can begin to apply immediately. It is not always something tangible, it is important that it is something that creates value (for example, useful recommendations for work).

Thesis number 2. Agile allows you to quickly launch the product, overtaking competitors

Forget about many years of product preparation - as they say, there will never be a better time than now. It is much more profitable to invest in the team additionally and quickly take over the undeveloped market segment, ahead of all its competitors. Recall in October of 2016 and Sberbank - then he was the first in the Russian market to provide an opportunity to pay through Apple Pay. As a result - 10 million users, which the bank immediately collected and recorded in the asset. That was Agile.

Thesis number 3. Agile is needed for flexible business management in an ever-changing world

The word "agile" is translated from English as "agile, agile". And although agile methods really allow you to quickly bring to the market quality products, the essence of this approach is not in speed, but in flexibility. A good example is the "Button" company, which works in the accounting market. A typical company in this sphere is 200 clients for 20 employees. You can attract more customers, but often this leads to a bloated staff. In the "Button" they were able to apply the flexibility and creative approach of the agile-system, thereby increasing the customer portfolio to almost 1000, without expanding its staff. The company refused from rigid KPI, regulations and microcontrol. In addition, it was decided to "facilitate the life" of the accounting department: the company realized that it was impossible to bring the balance sheet to perfection, and began to apply the Pareto principle - the risk of additional charging several hundred rubles should not become the reason for sleepless nights of the accountant and endless calls to the client with the requirements to provide all possible data. This reduced the hours of employees, reduced the degree of tension in the team and there was a place for a "creative approach" in the field of debit and credit.

Thesis number 4. Agile motivates the team without resorting to material incentives

Based on the results of each segment, the customer evaluates the result and gives feedback. Short-distance races give a sense of quick victory, and thanks to regular communication and close connection with business, the team feels the importance of their work for the common cause. Not surprisingly, 98% of companies that have implemented Agile, note the growth of motivation of their employees. For example, the developer of cloud solutions Salesforce applied the Agile approach, when the company grew to 200+. At that moment, management realized that "as before" it does not work. Therefore, all the teams have re-formed into cross-functional (employees of different departments could interact more, were oriented to one common result and learned about the parallel processes a lot of interesting). As a result, the company achieved in three months what it could not achieve the whole previous year. As a result, happy customers and teams without additional motivational investments.

Thesis number 5. Agile and microcontrol are incompatible

According to Agile methodology, the leader does not control the team, but sets the framework, specifies the goals and gives enough freedom in making decisions. After that, it supports, focuses, guides and eliminates obstacles in the way of the team. For effective work, the team must be a self-organized unit. Control as a management tool in Agil-approaches is replaced with a complete transparency of the process, which is in three simple things: everyone in the team knows what everyone else is doing. Every team knows why it does what it does (in other words, it is oriented towards a business goal). And, finally, problems, blunders and mistakes are not hushed up, but are discussed and resolved. For example, PayUp's online payment provider has practiced flexibility for several years at most enterprises, but until they got rid of excessive corporate reporting, there were no major shifts.

Thesis number 6. Agile is suitable not only for IT-business

Agile approaches are used not only in software development, but also in the production of physical things and even in public administration. For example, Amancio Ortega - the richest man in the world in August 2017 - applies AGILE approaches to almost all companies belonging to his retail giant Inditex: Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Pull and Bear and others. Rapid feedback from consumers and regular experiments that allow us to quickly test hypotheses allow Zara to produce up to 40 collections per year (for an average similar brand - from 4 to 8 collections). Another example is the UK government, where Agile is an unspoken standard. For example, the method is applied in the field of public services. Data on the needs of citizens are constantly analyzed and the work of public services is corrected, based on the information collected (for example, working hours become more convenient).

Thesis number 7. The introduction of Agile can lead to a short-term cost reduction, but this is not the main thing

Good professionals are expensive, so while the team is being formed, costs are high. However, the total costs for the project will be low due to the rapid launch of the product. For example, the provider of medical information solutions, Cerner Corporation introduced Agile, when it became necessary to speed up the release of its products to the market. Thanks to its flexible approach, the company reduced its market presence and costs by up to 75%.