The scrum approach to project success

If you've spent any time in the data science world, you've likely heard of agile and scrum—the popular framework for managing complex processes. If this mysterious-sounding framework has piqued your interest, this module can help provide you with a basic understanding of agile project management methodologies, and what scrum is and how you can use agile project management methods like scrum to realize your creative brief.

Learning objectives

After this module, you will be able to:

  • Understand the agile project management approaches; specifically scrum, to project success.
  • Understand the different roles involved and establish your scrum team.
  • Set the vision for your project and plan a roadmap.
  • Plan sprints and conduct daily stand-ups.
  • Access a sprint and conduct a sprint reflection.

The agile revolution:

What does it mean for a project management methodology to be ‘agile'? And why do project need to be agile in the first place? Is agile not just a way of saying that you can't plan properly in the first place?

Watch the second part of the Block D Kickoff (9 AM - 10 AM) for an overview agile project management and teamwork.

You can find the slides here!

Watch the following lecture video to find out!

So from all these agile methodologies, scrum is by far the most popular agile project management methodology. The word scrum we're talking about is an adaptation of the word scrummage, taken from the game rugby, but scrum from rugby, how does that work? Well, in rugby, a scrummage, scrum for short, was the method used to restart play in a match after a foul. Visually, it's eight players from each team packed together with heads down, all trying to take possession of the ball. So, not exactly the poster child for project management, but with a little imagination, it makes sense.

On a project team, the goal is to get the project done; to create the desired value. Historically, using traditional methods, this meant planning and designing the whole project at the beginning and sticking to that plan with no variation where management maintains strict control over every aspect of the project.

The modern world is complex and dynamic so in real life project work often unpredictable. Therefore, it's often impossible to know at the beginning exactly how a project will unfold and how to best meet its unique challenges. The Agile Project Management movement comes out of a desire to adapt in real time to the changing circumstances that teams face, and this is where the rugby team comes in.

The founders of the Agile movement recognize that, in rugby, the object is to move the ball down the field, one possession at a time, so why couldn't projects do the same thing? Why not change the focus from just winning the whole game to winning each and every milestone and deliverable? These innovators co-opted the word scrum to reflect this new approach, an approach that breaks the deliverables and milestones into smaller pieces and gets the whole team together to focus on just that one goal until it's done. Like in rugby, if the small individual scores happened on a regular cycle, winning the game or delivering the project would take care of itself, so the sporting word scrum has been transformed in the last several years to have a new meaning. It means to run your projects more like a rugby match, pursuing the small goals and deliverables that will get your project done.

Scrum - the leading agile product management methodology

Scrum takes the agile manifesto and its key principles and boils them down to a very simple framework that encourages small scale focus and rapid learning cycles. That's what fail fast really means, learn fast. With that in mind, the basics of the framework are designed to encourage that fast feedback loop.

Scrum is much the same. With the agile principles as the guideposts and a loose framework of activities executed on a regular, short schedule, your project will be get up for success. In a nutshell, here's the scrum framework in its simplest form. To start, the product owner has a prioritized backlog of work for the team to do. Every two weeks or so, the team looks at the backlog and decides what they can accomplish in the next two weeks.

Working agile requires team member to take responsibility and ownership for own work their project contributions while being open to adapt if the project requires it. Without these ingredients; responsibility, ownership and adaptability, working agile doesn't really work!

So in scrum the team develops and tests their solution to the backlog items until they're done and ready for use. At the end of the two weeks, the team demonstrates their accomplishments to the product owner and stakeholders. Finally, they reflect on how things went during the two weeks and they decide what they can do to improve their work practices. That's it. The short timeframe and the focus on a completed product at the end forces the team to fail fast or more appropriately, learn fast.

Tools: Jira Project Management Software

At its core, Jira is software that assists with planning, tracking, reporting, and releasing of projects. It started primarily as a tool for software development, but over the last few years, it's been adopted in the AI and Data Science industry. Please watch this video to learn what Jira is in a nutshell.

Blended Learning

  • Please complete the Problems to Solve module in the Scrum course on Linkedin Learning which you can find here.

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