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SCRUM project management is a classical method within AGILE framework describing all planning, control and analysis at all stages. The methodology for implementing AGILE development involves an interactive approach. Scrum sessions (30-day sprints) are used to prioritize tasks. To simplify the job, the project manager’s responsibilities are transferred to the scrum master. Independent solution of specific tasks require small teams. The achieved results are assessed during the meetings with the scram master, followed by the determination of priority for outstanding tasks. The main features of this technique are:

• Meetings and sprint analysis;

• Small team;

• Restriction on certain periods of time (sprint) to run WIPs;

• Work in Process WIPs.

Following Agile principles, Scrum splits a project into parts to be used immediately by the Customer to obtain values, called “W” – product backlog. Then the product owner, i.e. the customer’s representative in the team identifies the priorities of these parts. The most important “pieces” are selected first for sprint performance – this is how 2—4 weeks Scrum iterations are called. At the end of the sprint, the customer is presented with a working product increment – the most important usable “pieces”. It can be a partially functioning site or application. After that, the project team proceeds to the next sprint. The duration of the sprint is fixed, but the team chooses it independently at the beginning of the project, based on the project and its own performance.

To ensure that the project meets the customer’s requirements, which tend to change over time, the incompleted content of the project and amendments are reassessed before each sprint starts. This process involves everyone including the project team, the project team leader (Scrum Master) and the product owner. Everyone is responsible for this process. Scrum Master is supposed to help project participants better understand and accept the values, principles and norms of Scrum practice. He is the leader and intermediary between the outside world and the team. His has to ensure that no one interferes with the team to work independently and comfortably on assignment. The team is responsible for ensuring that all the necessary tasks are done and the deliveries are completed at the end of the sprint. The main structure of Scrum processes is based on 5 main meetings:

• Backlog;

• Sprint planning,

• Daily meetings;

• Sprint review;

• Sprint retrospectives.

Backlog Refinement Meeting (“Backlog Grooming”) is a meeting similar to the planning phase in classic project management, and held on the first day of each Sprint. It reviews what has been done within the whole project, what remains to be done and what decision is made to do next. The product owner determines which tasks are of the highest priority at this stage. This process determines the Sprint effectiveness, because this is what the value the customer will receive at the end of the sprint depends on.

Sprint planning: Once the priorities have been determined by the product owner, the team jointly decides what exactly they will do during the upcoming iteration, how to achieve the goal set at the previous meeting. At this stage, teams may apply different planning and evaluation tools, as long as they do not contradict Scrum principles and logic. Sprint planning is carried out at the very beginning of the iteration, after the Product Ordering Meeting.

In a perfect world, Daily meetings are held every sprint day, at the same time. Team members spend 15 minutes to share information about the status of the tasks and the entire project. These meetings are not intended for discussing problems or decision-making. If some questions arise or conflicts occur after the briefing, the Scrum Master and the participants involved discuss them separately. The meetings are needed to share information and keep all team members up to date with the state of the project.

Sprint review is a stage to examine and adapt the product being created. The team presents the results of the activity to all interested parties. Its main task is to ensure that the product of the stage meets the participants’ expectations and is consistent with the project objectives.

Sprint Retrospective is carried out upon the sprint review and before planning the next sprint. The team finds out how clearly and smoothly the stage was implemented. The challenges occurring in operations, methodology and interaction are studied. This stage allows the team to conduct a reflection and to implement the next Sprint more effectively.

SCRUM strength is that it was developed for projects in which “quick wins” are combined with tolerance to changes. This framework is suitable for situations when not all team members have sufficient experience in the field in which the project is being implemented – constant communication between team members compensates the lack of experience or qualifications of some employees due to information and colleagues’ assistance. In my opinion, the main Scrum’s benefit is that one is allowed to “make quick mistakes.” Instead of preparing an expensive and long release, Scrum deliveries every two weeks are quite small. But they are easy to track and, if something goes wrong, fix it quickly.

SCRUM weakness is that it is very demanding for the project team. It should be small (5—9 people) and cross functional, which means that team members should have more than one competency required for the project implementation. For example, a software developer must be a tester and business analyst at the same time. This is done to keep all the team “busy” at different stages of the project, and so employees would help and replace each other. In addition, team members must be “team players”, be able to take responsibility and self-organize.

To hire such a mature team is very difficult! Scrum is not suitable for all teams and organizations because the process proposed may not be suitable for the development of a specific product – for example, an industrial machine or a building.