Collaboration & Process › Agile & Delivery Process

Scrum

An agile framework with sprints, roles and ceremonies.

Also known as: Scrum framework

Scrum is a framework for agile work. It describes a small set of roles, events and artifacts, and leaves most of the details to the team. The official rules are in the Scrum Guide.

The main parts, as the Scrum Guide describes them:

• Roles: the Product Owner, who manages the Product Backlog, the Developers, who build the product, and the Scrum Master, who helps the team follow Scrum.
• Events: the Sprint itself, which is time-boxed to one month or less, plus Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum, the Sprint Review and the Sprint Retrospective.
• Artifacts: the Product Backlog, the Sprint Backlog and the Increment, a usable piece of finished work that meets the team’s Definition of Done.

Teams adapt the details. How long their sprints run, how they estimate, and how they run the daily meeting all vary, and many teams use Scrum alongside other practices.

The classic mistake is treating Scrum as a checklist of meetings. The framework exists to make the work visible and to create regular points to inspect and adjust it. The Scrum Master role is about helping the team improve how it works, not about managing the schedule.