Scrum Methodology: Impacts, Comparisons, and Industry Applications

This report provides a detailed analysis of the Scrum methodology, a responsive framework used primarily in software development. It explores the history of Scrum, its advantages such as improved product quality, faster project delivery, and enhanced teamwork, as well as its disadvantages, including the need for experienced team members and a suitable team environment. The report compares Scrum to other methodologies like Kanban, Agile, and Waterfall, highlighting the key differences in their approaches and applications. Furthermore, it discusses the industry use of Scrum, providing real-world examples and success stories. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of Scrum in modern project management, offering valuable insights into its practical implications and effectiveness.

Running head: IMPACTS OF SCRUM METHODOLOGY
Impacts of Scrum Methodology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1IMPACTS OF SCRUM METHODOLOGY
Executive Summary
Scrum is a special kind of responsive framework which is responsible for knowledge
management with a prominence on development of software. The application of scrum can be
widely distributed among many other fields. Scrum is slowly getting popular among the
traditional project teams. A scrum helps the team members to respond to the requirements of the
customers and also help the organization to adjust according to the new requirements of the
customers. There are many advantages of Scrum methodology as it is 40% faster than other
methodologies. There are some major disadvantages of Scrum methodology as any methodology
cannot be perfect.

2IMPACTS OF SCRUM METHODOLOGY
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................4
History of Scrum..............................................................................................................................5
Advantages of Scrum.......................................................................................................................5
Improvement in quality of the products.......................................................................................5
Faster delivery of projects...........................................................................................................6
Great investment on return..........................................................................................................6
Development of team work.........................................................................................................6
Efficiency while generating data.................................................................................................6
Disadvantages of Scrum..................................................................................................................7
Requirement of experienced team members................................................................................7
Requirement of team environment..............................................................................................7
Project quality management........................................................................................................7
Presence of quality leaders to manage the project.......................................................................8
Comparison of the Scrum methodology with other project methodologies....................................8
The difference between the Scrum methodology and Kanban methodology..............................8
Difference between the Scrum and Agile methodology..............................................................9
Difference between Waterfall methodology and Scrum methodology.....................................10
Success and Failure Stories or Application/Industry use..............................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13

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References......................................................................................................................................15

4IMPACTS OF SCRUM METHODOLOGY
1. Introduction
Scrum is a special kind of responsive framework which is responsible for knowledge
management with a prominence on development of software (Sharma & Hasteer, 2016). The
application of scrum can be widely distributed among many other fields. Scrum is slowly getting
popular among the traditional project teams. It was originally developed for a group of three to
nine project members, who can distribute their task among themselves. Sprints is used by the
team members for breaking the task of those project members into simpler actions. The simpler
actions created by breaking of task can be completed within time box repetitions by the
application of sprint. Scrum is very lightweight and iterative framework, thus it is widely used
for management of product development (Permana, 2015). Scrum is a product development
strategy in which the development teams works together for completing their assignment.
Scrum helps in maintaining co-ordination between the team members by enhancing the
communication standards. The customers of various organization often changes their mind
regarding their needs from that organization, this situation is termed as requirements volatility.
Scrum helps the organizations to understand these situations and also helps the organizations to
respond to the requirements of their customers. The development team who are related to the
scrum project are responsible for development or testing of the product. A scrum helps the team
members to respond to the requirements of the customers and also help the organization to adjust
according to the new requirements of the customers. Scrum is operated on three basic roles
which are product owner, Scrum master and development team (Rasnacis & Berzisa, 2017). This
report will discuss about the history of the scrum, advantages and disadvantages of scrum
methodology. The comparison between the Scrum and other methodologies will be discussed in
this project. The industry use of Scrum methodology will also be discussed in this report.

5IMPACTS OF SCRUM METHODOLOGY
History of Scrum
The term Scrum was introduced for the first time in 1986 by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka
Takeuchi in their Harvard Business Review article (Nonaka, Nishihara & Kawada, 2018). The
authors in their article described about a new approach to develop commercial products with
increasing speed and flexibility. The authors later stated in “The Knowledge Creating Company”
that scrum is a kind of innovation, which is a form of organizational knowledge creation. The
authors also described that how methodology scrum can increase the speed and flexibility of
production in the automotive and photocopier industries.
The term scrum was given to this methodology after the scrum method in rugby or
football by the author as in scrum is used to restart the play. Scrum method in rugby is the
process where two forward players of opponent teams interlock each other’s head in attempt to
gain the possession of the ball. Ken Scahwber used the scrum methodology for the first time in
his company Advance Development Methods during the early 1990s (Kniberg, 2015). Jeff
McKenna and John Scumniotales also implemented this methodology in their company Easel
Corporation. Schawber along with Sutherland described the Scrum framework at Business
Object Design and Implementation in 1995. Schawber also worked with Mike Beedle for
developing the product development methodology in 2001.
Advantages of Scrum
The advantages of scrum methodology are as follows.
Improvement in quality of the products
Scrum methodology helps to develop complex projects in a very simple way. The Scrum
methodology supports customer feedback system, where the customer are able to contact with

6IMPACTS OF SCRUM METHODOLOGY
the project members and can give real time input (Ross, 2017). The real time input and feedback
system from the customer helps to increase the quality of the product.
Faster delivery of projects
When compared to other methodologies, the Scrum methodology is 40% faster while
delivering the final projects. The real time input and feedback system supported by Scrum
methodologies helps the project manager and the project team members to increase the
efficiency of the project. Customers are able to communicate with the project members in real
time and thus the coordination between the customer and the project members helps to deliver
the projects much faster.
Great investment on return
The communication system between the customer and the project members supported by
Scrum methodologies makes the project a perfect one. Very less number of defects are found on
the final products as the customer and project teams are in constant communication (Ćirić et al.,
2016). The Scrum methodology helps to save the cost for correction of the project giving high
return on investment.
Development of team work
Scrum methodology helps to develop the team work as it needs coordination of many
teams for the completion of project (Ahmad et al., 2016). Scrum gives opportunity to every team
members of the project for being creative and self-sufficient.
Efficiency while generating data
The metrics and data which are required to calculate the final cost and time for the project
can be easily obtained by implementing Scrum methodology. The other software methodologies

7IMPACTS OF SCRUM METHODOLOGY
can generate irrelevant data which can affect the quality of the project (Schneeweiss et al., 2016).
But the Scrum methodology is able to provide the team members with essential data.
Disadvantages of Scrum
Scrum methodology is also not perfect like any other methodologies. The disadvantages
of scrum methodologies are as follows
Requirement of experienced team members
The Scrum methodology requires experienced team members, who can handle the
feedback from the customers. The Scrum methodology involves high pressure and stress
environment and unexperienced team members would not be able to handle such stress (Mahnič,
2015). Thus this methodology is useful only when the team members are experienced.
Requirement of team environment
Scrum methodology can be followed by individual, but it was designed for team work.
The Scrum methodology is designed for a team consisting of at least three to nine team
members. The main disadvantage of this methodology is that it is not suitable for large teams
(Liu & Wang, 2016). Team consisting of more than 10 members cannot apply Scrum
methodology for completion of the project. It is only suitable for small teams.
Project quality management
The experienced team members have to communicate with the customer for successful
completion of the project (Lock, 2017). The manager and the team members have to take care of
every queries of the customers as this methodology supports great connectivity between the
customer and the project members.

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Presence of quality leaders to manage the project
The manager of the teams who will guide the other project members should be very
experienced to maintain the quality of the product. Leadership skill of the manger is very
important to tackle the pressure from customer (Basu, 2017). Thus absence of a capable manager
can affect the success of this methodology.
Comparison of the Scrum methodology with other project methodologies
There are some other methodologies for project development in industries which are
Kanban and Agile. Scrum is a type of framework which is required for implementation of Agile
(Ahimbisibwe, Cavana & Daellenbach, 2015). Though Scrum is a part of Agile, but scrum have
unique characteristics like tracking based on roles, defined iterations duration and others.
The difference between the Scrum methodology and Kanban methodology
Scrum follows a fixed length iterations in which the product is developed. Each of these
iterations are called as Sprint (Kupiainen, Mäntylä & Itkonen, 2015). The iteration or time
duration can vary from 2 weeks to one month. Kanban does not work on the principle of
iterations. Scrum works on 8-steps sprint cycle, but Kanban have no such sprint cycles for its
operations.
Scrum methodology operates on the basic of team. The team who are working under this
methodology estimates the plan beforehand and calculate the expenses for the project before
handed. The teams plans the sprint which is based on backlog sheet. The backlog sheet of the
scrum methodology makes it very efficient for calculating the expenses. In Kanban
methodology, the team size and workflow are mapped on the Kanban Board depending upon the
project. Kanban Board is very important for presenting the flow of work and it also helps to

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optimise the task flow between the various teams involved. Kanban Board have three parts
which are “To Do”, “In Progress” and “Done” (Al-Baik & Miller, 2015). However the Kanban
Board have some modified segments like code review, testing and delivery.
The process of the scrum methodology are based on three basic roles. The three basic
roles of scrum methodology are the product owner, the scrum master and the development. The
Kanban methodology have no such roles involved.
The priority of the task can be changed in Kanban methodology whereas in Scrum
methodology if the priority is already set then it cannot be changed easily. In Kanban
methodology the priorities can be reshuffled according to the needs by the product owner. The
priorities in the Scrum methodology cannot be changed easily because of the involvement of
different teams.
The changes in the project cannot be done in the Scrum methodology after the starting of
the sprint. The Kanban methodology is very much flexible when compared to Scrum
methodology. The changes in the project can be done at any stage in the Kanban methodology.
Difference between the Scrum and Agile methodology
Agile and Scrum follows the same set of system for their operations but there are some
differences between them. Scrum is a part of agile methodology in which the agile have some
basis set of rules for developing a software through iterative progress (Altameem, 2015). The
main difference between the Agile and Scrum methodology is that the Scrum is the methodology
to implement the philosophy of Agile.
The methodology of Agile is used when the definition of final product is not clear to the
team whereas the Scrum is used when it is required to change the requirement of the product.

10IMPACTS OF SCRUM METHODOLOGY
The change is implemented while doing the entire process of the project in agile methodology. In
Scrum methodology the change in entire process is not required.
Difference between Waterfall methodology and Scrum methodology
The main difference between the Scrum methodology and Waterfall methodology is that
the Waterfall is very rigid whereas the Scrum methodology is flexible. Waterfall methodology
follows a very structured process in which another phase of task are started before completion of
the previous set of task (KALESHOVSKA et al., 2015). In Scrum methodology a set of task is
divided into different groups. The groups will work independently and the result of one task will
not be dependent on the other task.
Waterfall follows a sequential process for completion of the project whereas the Scrum
methodology follows linear process. Waterfall methodology strictly follows the sequential
process which means the task should be done according to the predefined sequence and the
sequence should not break at any cost. It is not necessary to maintain a proper sequence of task
while completing a project in the Scrum methodology.
Waterfall methodology does not allow change in the previous step of the task which is
already done thus, making this methodology a rigid one. Scrum methodology allows to change
the task which is already done.
The requirements for the projects should be pre-defined in the Waterfall methodology,
whereas in the Scrum methodology the requirement does not need to be predefined. The teams
working in the scrum methodology have their own goals to finish their task in due time. The task
can change after communicating with the customer thus the task can be predefined in the Scrum

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methodology. In the Waterfall methodology the requirement for the project is always pre-defined
as the task is sequentially done.
Success and Failure Stories or Application/Industry use
The Scrum methodology model along with its structure should be strictly followed by
every team members. The teams chosen for execution of the project should be very efficient.
Scrum master should have good management skills along with good communication skill and
leadership skill. Scrum Master need to have good relationship with all the team members. The
iterations should be followed by all the team without any failure. Scrum Master should be able to
control the employees efficiently.
The Scrum methodology can be said as successful if all the experienced team members
along with their manager worked together and with great enthusiasm. Every employee in the
teams should work properly to make the methodology a successful one.
Cisco is a reputed IT and Networking company which is active globally. Cisco
implemented the methodology of Scrum in their Organization from 2015. Cisco was extremely
successful in implementing the Scrum methodology in their organization. Cisco followed the
methodology of Waterfall before 2015 (Rola, Kuchta & Kopczyk, 2016). After the
implementation of Scrum methodology Cisco improved in three aspects. The three aspects were
production capabilities, fixing of defects and increase projects. Cisco used to have four different
teams of designing, building, testing and deploying of the product. After the implementation of
Scrum methodology they divided their work force into three teams consisting of capability team,
defect team and fixing team. These three teams used to work simultaneously towards the
common goal of success. Extra amount of efforts were given behind the team by the