subject: Scrum Project Management In A Nutshell [print this page] Some companies use 'Scrum'project management and it is particularly popular in software development projects, taking more of an incremental approach than following a waterfall approach.
A Scrum is both adaptive and empirical, it focuses on question and answer based discussion rather than statements. The questions are answered as soon as they are raised, rather than waiting for them to affect the productivity of a project.
The three roles used in Scrum project management are Product Owner, Project Team and ScrumMaster. The Product Owner is in a role such as a product manager or sponsor, so someone who is involved and has a personal interest, but is not actually carrying out the components of a project, the Project Team are the individuals who make up the team carrying out the project; and the ScrumMaster is responsible for keeping the Scrum methodologies on track.
A key practice when adopting Scrum is the Daily Scrum Meeting, during which those creating the project ask and answer three key questions:
*What did you do yesterday? *What do you plan to do today? *What will get in the way of the work you want to do today?
These questions allow many of the questions relating to progress, planning and obstructions in a quick and simple way, as part of a methodology which focuses on small parts of a project at any one time.
The Daily Scrum should last no more than 15 minutes and this creates a more dynamic and succinct process where everyone stays on track. Another key element to the Daily Scrum is that only the ScrumMaster & Project Team are allowed to speak. The others are there to observe, and understand but the feeling is that they will discuss things that are important to them or more long term rather than the issues at hand or what is important to those actually carrying out the work.
