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February 20, 2006
Why Scrum?
Scrum is an emerging technique that is one of the new agile development methodologies. As I understand it, scrum is sort of the requirements definition analog to Extreme Programming. You can find a presentation of the scrum principles here.
A key part of scrum development is the use of user stories. Such stories are abbreviated versions of use cases. Each story is given a brief title, like User Buys Book, and then brief details are described that expand the story. Another key principle is that scrum recognizes is that there isn't one user. There are many users -- or at least user roles. Specifying the role of the user is a key part of the user story.
The development team consists of users and developers who work together, full time. Work is segmented into 2-4 week cycles -- cycles must be short enough to be completed before requirements change -- and a working version of the system must be finished within a cycle. The team meets every day.
Here's an interesting angle. Remember the story of the difference between interest and commitment? It's like the difference between eggs and ham? The chicken is interested, but the pig is committed.
Well, in a scrum meeting, both chickens and pigs can attend, but only pigs can talk. You can find a summary presentation of user stories here.
Posted by DavidK at February 20, 2006 02:40 PM | Permalink