What is Scrum: The simple practical guide

Scrum vs. Agile vs. Lean 

Agile methods or specific Scrum elements, such as managing a backlog or working in sprints, are often equated with “Agile.” Similarly, “Lean” and “Agile” are frequently mentioned together. Here’s how the three terms can be distinguished: 

Lean is an approach focused on reducing waste and optimizing the flow of work through the value stream (the steps in a process). It originated in manufacturing, specifically the Toyota Lean Production System. Lean principles include eliminating unnecessary steps, continuous improvement, respect for the people doing the work, and creating efficient processes. 

Agility comes from the Latin word “agilitas,” meaning flexibility or nimbleness. For businesses, agility means responding quickly to changes, handling uncertain information, and mastering complex situations. Agility builds on Lean principles and expands them to support the development of new, complex solutions. 

Scrum is one of several agile frameworks. It provides a minimal but concrete way of working with defined roles, meeting structure, and deliverables to help teams achieve agility. 

The Foundation of Scrum 

Scrum is a lightweight, agile framework that helps individuals, teams, and organizations create value through adaptive solutions for complex problems. It builds on Lean principles and extends them for product development through empiricism. Empiricism emphasizes testing assumptions through experiments, while Lean focuses on essential work and eliminating waste. 

Without a solid understanding of these fundamentals, Scrum can quickly turn into “agile theater”—where teams go through the motions but fail to strengthen the organization’s true agility. 

Lean Principles – Start Here for Scrum! 

While Lean principles are not part of the official Scrum Guide, they are essential for successfully applying agile methods: 

1. Define Value: Value is determined from the customer’s perspective—what is truly needed and worth paying for. 
2. Analyze the Value Stream: Examine all steps required to deliver value to identify those that contribute to it and those that are unnecessary. 
3. Create Flow: Ensure work flows smoothly through all process steps by removing obstacles and delays that disrupt progress. 
4. Implement Pull: Deliver small, incremental work packages quickly and as needed, based on customer feedback and key metrics, rather than relying on large, infrequent releases. 
5. Continuous Improvement (Kaizen): Kaizen means ongoing improvement through small, incremental changes to work more efficiently, quickly, and resource-consciously. Regular reflections, like retrospectives, help identify and implement opportunities for sustainable improvement. 

Agile Manifesto

The Agile Manifesto outlines four core values, complemented by 12 principles. It captures the essence of all agile frameworks. The four values are: 

1. Individuals and interactions are more important than processes and tools. 
2. Working software or products are more important than comprehensive documentation. 
3. Customer collaboration is more important than contract negotiations. 
4. Responding to change is more important than following a rigid plan. 

This does not mean the items on the right are unimportant, but the items on the left are prioritized more highly. 

Empiricism 

In product development, empiricism means making decisions based on observable results, data, and facts rather than assumptions. Learning happens through small, regular experiments, and plans are continuously adjusted based on new insights to achieve better outcomes. 

Empiricism is built on transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Missing any of these pillars can lead to negative consequences: 

• Without transparency, critical information is lacking, making it difficult to work effectively and optimize. This increases the risk of solving the wrong problem. 

• Without inspection, it’s unclear which action is the most important at a given time, leading to a loss of focus. 

• Without adaptation, progress stagnates because the approach or product is not improved based on new findings. 

Scrum Values 

Values are an abstraction of desired behavior and are part of the agile mindset. It’s important to define with the team what it means to embody these values in the specific situation. 

The 5 Scrum values are: 

1. Respect: Appreciating the skills and contributions of all team members. 
2. Courage: Embracing challenges and being open to change. 
3. Openness: Communicating honestly and transparently with one another. 
4. Focus: Concentrating on the most important goals and tasks. 
5. Commitment: Dedicating yourself to the team’s goals and only making promises that can be kept. 

When a team lives these values, trust emerges. 

The Elements of Scrum – How the Framework is Structured 

Scrum is an agile framework that supports a cross-functional team in solving complex tasks. It defines: 

• 3 Roles (Responsibilities): Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers. 

• 3 Artifacts (Visible Work Outputs): Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and Product Increment. 

• 5 Events: Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-Up, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective, with the Sprint serving as the overarching container for all other events. 

3 Roles – The Scrum Team 

The Scrum Team shares the responsibility to deliver at least one valuable Product Increment in every Sprint. In the early phases of product development, increments are often used to reduce risks, test assumptions, and gain knowledge before progressively delivering product features. 

A Scrum Team is: 

• Cross-functional: All skills required to deliver a Product Increment are present within the team. 

• Small: Composed of typical 10 members or fewer working toward a shared goal. 

• Self-organizing: The team independently decides who does what, when, and how—without hierarchies but with distinct responsibilities. 

Scrum defines three key responsibilities within the team: Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers. 

Product Owner 

The Product Owner represents the needs of stakeholders and ensures the product delivers maximum value. What is considered “valuable” depends on the product goal. As a leader with content responsibility, the Product Owner ensures a clear product goal, manages the Product Backlog, and helps the team achieve the highest possible impact with their skills. 

Developers 

The Developers are the team members responsible for creating the Product Increments. They ensure the (technical) quality of the product and own the Sprint Backlog. If they are not yet able to deliver a Product Increment every Sprint, they collaborate e.g. with the Scrum Master to establish the necessary conditions. Together, the Developers possess all the skills needed to create the Product Increment. 

Scrum Master 

The Scrum Master ensures the Scrum Team works effectively. They coach the team in agile practices and collaborate with the organization to remove obstacles. A key focus is on shortening feedback loops to enable faster learning and risk reduction. The Scrum Master promotes continuous improvement within the team and across the organization. 

3 Scrum Artifacts – The visible work results 

Scrum defines three artifacts, which are the visible results of the team’s work. Each artifact includes a commitment—a promise about what the agile team aims to deliver. 

Product Backlog 

The Product Backlog is an ordered, prioritized list of product requirements that is continuously updated. Its commitment is the Product Goal, which describes what the product aims to achieve. 

• High-priority items are placed at the top, detailed enough for implementation, and are addressed soon. Lower-priority items are broader and less defined. 

• Requirements are often written as User Stories but can take other forms. 

To prevent the Product Backlog from turning into an endless wish list, it needs a clearly defined Product Goal. Items that do not contribute to the goal are removed to keep the backlog manageable. 

Once a Product Goal is achieved or discarded based on new insights, a new goal can be defined. However, there is always only one Product Goal at a time that the team works toward. 

Sprint Backlog 

The Sprint Backlog contains the tasks and requirements to be implemented in the current Sprint. Its commitment is the Sprint Goal, which provides the focus for the Sprint. 

• The Sprint Backlog makes the team’s work transparent and offers a preview of what the next Product Increment will include. 

• Items in the Sprint Backlog can evolve during the Sprint as new insights arise. 

If it becomes clear during the Sprint that the Sprint Goal is unattainable or obsolete, the Product Owner can cancel the Sprint and start a new one or adapt the Sprint Goal to align with what is achievable. 

Product Increment 

A Product Increment is a valuable, integrated, and potentially shippable part of the product. Its commitment is the Definition of Done (DoD), which determines when an increment is considered complete. 

• Each Product Increment represents a step toward the Product Goal. While the Scrum Team can deliver multiple increments per Sprint, at least one must be produced. 

• Any planned work that does not meet the Definition of Done at the end of the Sprint is returned to the Product Backlog and reprioritized for the next Sprint. 

3 Scrum Events – The Regular Meetings 

The Scrum events are the team’s regular meetings to plan and coordinate work. They are only effective if they replace existing meetings rather than add to the team’s time burden. 

To replace existing meetings, ask: “What decisions are made in this meeting?” and shift those decisions into the appropriate Scrum events. 

The Sprint 

A Sprint is the overarching timebox in which all Scrum work and events take place. It has a fixed duration of 1 to 4 weeks (a maximum of one month). The Scrum Team commits to delivering at least one done, integrated, and potentially shippable Product Increment each Sprint to achieve the Sprint Goal set in Sprint Planning. 

Sprint Planning 

Each Sprint begins with Sprint Planning, where the Sprint Goal is agreed upon by the Developers and the Product Owner, facilitated by the Scrum Master. The team selects the necessary tasks from the Product Backlog to create the Sprint Backlog and plans the work needed to achieve the goal. Actions for continuous improvement, as well as potential capacity for maintenance and support, are also taken into account. 

Daily Scrum 

The Daily Scrum is a short, 15-minute meeting for Developers to coordinate their work toward achieving the Sprint Goal and share new insights. 

To ensure it doesn’t devolve into a status update or a micro-management tool, the focus must remain on what is needed to complete Sprint Backlog items, not on what individual team members have done. 

Sprint Review 

The Sprint Review takes place at the end of the Sprint and involves the entire Scrum Team and stakeholders. Stakeholders inspect the Product Increment in relation to the Product Goal and provide feedback, which is incorporated into the Product Backlog for future planning. 

Sprint Retrospective 

The Sprint Retrospective happens after the Sprint Review at the end of each Sprint. The Scrum Team reflects on collaboration, processes, tools, and the Definition of Done from the previous Sprint and identifies actions to improve team effectiveness. The Scrum Master facilitates the retrospective, helping the team focus on the most important opportunities for improvement. 

Applications of Scrum 

Scrum was originally developed for software development but has proven its value in complex and volatile environments beyond its original use case. 

Scrum shines in projects that require a high degree of flexibility and where an empirical approach is essential. By regularly presenting and incorporating feedback on Product Increments, combined with defined events and artifacts, Scrum teams can learn through small, low-risk experiments which solutions work, respond quickly to changes, improve collaboration, and deliver high-quality products and services. 

The principles of Scrum have already been successfully applied to the development of combat helicopters, in schools, for wedding planning, and to improve the yields of African farmers. 

Advantages of Scrum 

• Enables flexibility and learning in tasks with many unknowns. 

• Still works when traditional management methods fail due to complexity. 

• Creates high transparency regarding the actual progress of development. 

• Ensures higher product quality through regular review and adaptation. 

• Increases employee motivation by providing greater decision-making freedom, purpose, and direct user feedback. 

• Provides a solid framework to become familiar with agile ways of working. 

• Offers a simple, streamlined approach with extensive training materials and numerous methodological additions available. 

Disadvantages of Scrum 

• Places higher demands on participants regarding self-management and business-oriented thinking. 

• For Scrum to be effective, the team requires empowerment from the organization. 

• Agile methods, in general, only work if a certain level of trust and a healthy failure culture already exist. 

• Only suitable for small teams, typically 10 people or fewer. 

• Can be misused as a micromanagement tool if the underlying principles and foundations are not well understood. 

5 Myths About the Scrum Framework That Aren’t True 

Myth 1: Scrum Is Only Suitable for Software Development 

Contrary to the widespread myth that Scrum is only applicable to software development, this agile framework has proven successful in many other fields. These include marketing, human resources, education, and even construction. Many organizations outside the IT sector have adopted Scrum to optimize their project management processes and improve team collaboration. This broad applicability highlights Scrum’s strength as a universal tool for effective project management. 

Myth 2: Scrum Is a Micromanagement Tool 

One of Scrum’s main goals is to enable self-managed and autonomous work within a development team. The team is free to plan and execute its work independently. It’s crucial that Scrum events are not misused but conducted according to the framework. For example, the Daily Scrum is not a status-reporting meeting but a way for developers to coordinate their work effectively. 

Myth 3: Scrum Requires Constant Meetings and Is Time-Consuming 

Contrary to the belief that Scrum ties employees up in endless meetings, its events are precisely structured to ensure time is used effectively and efficiently. Except for the Daily Scrum, the other events occur only once per cycle (Sprint), often reducing the overall number of meetings compared to traditional project management. 

Myth 4: Scrum Eliminates the Need for a Clear Project Vision 

A product vision is essential to ensure all steps align with a specific goal, and this is no different in Scrum. The Product Owner is responsible for defining and achieving this vision, as well as ensuring it is communicated to and understood by the team. Through the prioritization and refinement of the Product Backlog, the Product Goal—reflecting the vision—is achieved step by step. 

Myth 5: Scrum Teams Deliver More Value by Delivering More Features Faster 

A small, agile, cross-functional Scrum team often delivers remarkable value in a short time. This can lead to the mistaken belief that simply running Sprints and maintaining a Backlog in tools like Jira will allow teams to produce more features faster. However, the true value of a Scrum team comes from focusing on what is essential, testing assumptions through small experiments, delivering frequently to stakeholders, and using short feedback loops to quickly determine what works and what doesn’t. 

Conclusion 

Scrum is more than just roles and processes – it is a mindset that empowers teams to succeed in complex environments. Through self-organization, continuous learning, and short feedback cycles, Scrum enables a flexible and value-driven way of working. Effective use of Scrum requires an understanding of its underlying principles to develop innovative solutions, deliver value, and continuously improve. 

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Read more: 

Agiles Manifest: https://agilemanifesto.org/iso/de/manifesto.html 

Scrum Guide: https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html 

Scrum.org: https://www.scrum.org/ 

Simple Guide to Scrum: https://www.thescrummaster.co.uk/the-simple-guide-to-scrum-1-pager/