Scrum

Updated September 30, 20262 min read

In short

Scrum is an Agile framework in which a small team delivers a product in fixed-length cycles called sprints, using defined roles, events, and artifacts.

What is Scrum?

Scrum is a lightweight framework for building complex products through short, repeated cycles of work called sprints. It was created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990s and is defined in a short, free document called the Scrum Guide. Scrum puts Agile principles into practice by giving a team a small set of rules for planning, inspecting results, and adapting.

A Scrum team usually has ten people or fewer and three accountabilities. The Product Owner decides what is most valuable to build and orders the product backlog, a prioritized list of all planned work. The Developers, meaning everyone who builds the product, including testers and designers, create a usable increment each sprint, while the Scrum Master coaches the team and helps remove obstacles, called impediments. Every sprint follows the same events: sprint planning, a 15-minute daily scrum, a sprint review with stakeholders, and a sprint retrospective.

Scrum is widely used by software teams, and also for product design, marketing, and research work where requirements are uncertain. Think of it like a sports team that plays in short rounds: before each round they agree on a goal, they huddle briefly every day, and after the round they look at the score and discuss how to play better next time.

Scrum is often confused with Agile itself, but Agile is the broader philosophy and Scrum is one framework within it. It is also compared with Kanban: Scrum works in fixed-length sprints with defined roles, while Kanban has no sprints and instead manages a continuous flow of work by limiting how many items are in progress at once.

At a glance

Each sprint is a short loop of plan, build, inspect and adapt: the review looks at the product, the retrospective at how the team worked.

Key takeaways

Scrum is a framework for applying Agile, not a complete methodology.
The three accountabilities are Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers.
Work happens in sprints of one month or less, most often two weeks.
The main artifacts are the product backlog, the sprint backlog, and the increment.
Every sprint ends with a review of the product and a retrospective on the process.

Readers ask

What does a Scrum Master do?

A Scrum Master helps the team understand and follow Scrum, facilitates events when needed, and works to remove impediments that slow the team down. The role is a coach and facilitator, not a project manager who assigns tasks.

What is the difference between Scrum and Kanban?

Scrum organizes work into fixed-length sprints with defined roles and events. Kanban has no sprints or required roles; it visualizes work on a board and limits work in progress to keep a steady flow.

What is a daily standup in Scrum?

The daily scrum, often called the standup, is a 15-minute meeting where the Developers check progress toward the sprint goal and adjust their plan for the next day. It is for coordination, not a status report to a manager.