Agile vs Scrum

Are you new to software development or have some experience in the field? If so, you’re likely to be familiar with Agile and Scrum and also with scrum vs agile. Both of these approaches are used to improve the quality and speed of software delivery. 

According to Statista.com, as of the beginning of 2018, 91% of respondents said their company used agile development, and 88% said they were engaged in continuous integration. Working on software projects can be a daunting task. Agile is a software development method that relies heavily on collaboration, feedback, and Customer centricity. 

Scrum is a popular framework to develop, and deliver high-quality products/solutions using Agile values.

 Scrum emphasizes working in short cycles with regular check-ins to ensure quicker feedback is collected from the Customer and adapted at the earliest. 
If you are new to software development, it can be helpful to understand these two models so you can choose the best for your work.

What is Agile?

Agile is a software development method that encourages a rapid, evolutionary development cycle. It involves collaboration among team members who continuously improve their work product by responding to customer feedback and working together as a self-organizing team. Agile methods promote transparent communication, efficient problem-solving, and continual learning. 

Agile is a way of the software development process that emphasizes incremental value delivery and responding to customer feedback on regular basis. Agile has 4 core Values and 12 principles which focus on more collaborative work, continuous improvement, and delivering more sustainable products. This process helps improve the flow of information and the project’s overall efficiency. The goal of agile is to deliver products on time, with high quality, within budget, and meeting customer requirements.

What is Scrum?

Scrum is a lightweight framework that supports teams to work together effectively in building complex products. This framework is being used for over 20 years by numerous organizations for the effective delivery of products/solutions. The framework is designed to help teams produce high-quality products in a short amount of time. The three core principles of Scrum are;

1) Transparency 

2) Inspection and 

3) Adaptation
 These principles enable the team to achieve the goal.

Scrum is a framework for product development developed by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990s. Scrum aims to improve communication and coordination among team members while ensuring that products are delivered on time and within budget.

The basic steps in using Scrum are setting goals, developing a product plan, creating a sprint backlog, assigning tasks to team members, monitoring and collecting feedback, and adapting the feedback within the sprint. Teams typically consist of five to eleven people who work together in short bursts (sprints) to complete specific tasks. In the end, the team evaluates their progress and makes changes if necessary.

Agile vs Scrum

Agile is a way of developing a product. Scrum is a lightweight framework under the umbrella of Agile. Scrum supports the core values and principles of Agile.  There are various other frameworks under Agile such as Extreme Programming, Test Driven Development, Pair Programming, adaptive System Development, Behavior Driven Development, Crystal, Kanban, etc. 

Rather than terming it as differences between Agile and scrum, it would be more appropriate to note down the key elements of these two.

Agile	Scrum
Agile is a way of developing a product. It has 4 core Values and 12 Principles.	Scrum is a framework based on Agile. Scrum has 3 main pillars
Agile emphasizes an Iterative and Incremental Delivery approach	Scrum emphasizes on shorter Development cycles called Sprints which would deliver value incrementally to the customer.
Agile brings the best results when there is a fair idea about the product to be built.	Scrum encourages Innovative, more evolving approaches to building products.
Agile does not explicitly mention any events/ceremonies	Scrum has a definite set of events/ceremonies.
No definite guidelines about the roles	Scrum has definite roles in the team as Developers, Scrum Masters, and Product Owner

Conclusion

Agile is a philosophy that had come up to guide Complex Product Development. 

Scrum is one of the frameworks that is built to adapt Agile Core Values and Principles,  Scrum has been a popular framework to adapt Agile in organizations of various domains as it incorporates the shorter duration of Development cycles called ‘Sprints’ and value delivery is realized through following different Scrum events such as Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, Daily Standup, etc.

Scrum ensures the quality of the product delivered by ensuring the Definition of Ready(DOR), and Definition of Done are met for all the backlog items. To know more about Agile and Scrum, please visit LeanWisdom, and gain insight into a variety of certifications that you aspire to pursue! 

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