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The Impact of Scrum: Building a Better Website with Scrum Methodology
Each sprint begins with a Sprint Planning meeting, during which the project team sits down with the client to decide what will be worked on within the next two weeks. The client prioritizes functionality based on the team’s bandwidth, remaining project budget, and the items that the client feels are most important, then works with the team to set sprint goals. The team agrees upon what they can accomplish within the sprint, then creates a plan for how to get the work done.
Every day during the sprint, the team meets for just a few minutes first thing in the morning for a meeting called a “Scrum.” Each team member answers three questions: What did I do yesterday? What am I going to do today? Are there any roadblocks preventing me from accomplishing what I need to do? The ScrumMaster is responsible for making sure the sprint is on track and any roadblocks are removed.
On the last day of the sprint, the client and any key stakeholders assemble for a “Sprint Demo” where the team shows off the work that they did within the sprint and gets feedback and approval from the client. After the client leaves, the team meets for a “Sprint Retrospective” where they discuss what they did well that sprint, what they didn’t do well, and how they can make the next sprint more efficient.
There are a lot of benefits to Agile, but here are a few that I particularly like:
Transparency: Agile is all about giving the client a seat at the table. The client gets to prioritize what the team works on during every sprint and is always aware of how much budget has been used and is remaining so that smart decisions can be made about how to complete the work.
Efficiency: Though the time spent in meetings might seem unnecessary at first, that time serves to organize the team and create a plan that allows the work to get done faster. Additionally, the ongoing Quality Assurance that happens throughout every sprint allows us to catch and fix bugs earlier in the process so that rework and duplication of errors can be avoided.
Predictability: By chunking the work up into two-week intervals, it’s much easier to predict the timeline and cost of the project. Within each sprint, the client knows what can be expected within the set timeframe.
Flexibility: There’s a reason they call it “Agile.” With Waterfall project management, the scope and requirements are set up front and if the needs of the project change halfway through, it’s too late and now you need a change order. Agile allows the client to change course at any point along the way. If budget is fixed, they may need to remove something else in order to accommodate a new feature that wasn’t originally scoped, but the change can be implemented fairly seamlessly.
Quality: Since all work needs to be complete within the two-week timeframe, there is an added emphasis on producing high-quality work quickly. All work needs to pass Quality Assurance before it can be considered complete, which means there’s a higher emphasis on getting it right the first time.
These are just a handful of benefits, but they illustrate the larger point: While Agile was originally meant for building software, it can be applied to building websites too, and with equally effective results. So next time you hear somebody talking about sprints and scrums, think about how the Agile methodology can be applied to your projects and the benefits you could see too.