The Rules of SCRUM Break All DAM Problems!
The scrum is no longer limited to the pitch (a rugby playing field). The word scrum, as it is used in project management, is a metaphor for a new way to manage projects that is adaptable, fast, and iterative. From www.scrumalliance.org:
"When Jeff Sutherland created the scrum process in 1993, he borrowed the term from an analogy put forth in a 1986 study by Takeuchi and Nonaka, published in the Harvard Business Review. In that study, Takeuchi and Nonaka compare high-performing, cross-functional teams to the scrum formation used by rugby teams."
Why should you even care about using Scrum, especially since there are claims it doesn't work most of the time? For example, in the Forbes article, Scrum is a Major Management Discovery, author Steve Denning states, "More than 70% of Scrum implementations have failed to achieve their goals." So why shouldn't you just stop reading now? Because Denning goes on to say that if done right, "Scrum teams routinely obtain productivity increases of 200 to 400%, changes that are potentially industry-disruptive improvements."
This article originally appeared in the March 2013 issue of The PCB Magazine.