OTUG November 2003 Distinguished Lecture

Scrum

Agile and Scrum have come a long way since the 2001 Agile Manifesto. The Agile Alliance was started, three agile conferences are held annually, and such organizations as Microsoft, Sun, Federal Reserve Bank, Motorola, Xerox, and Fidelity Investments have made major use of Scrum. Scrum has moved from an informal process to a product, with a formal methodology and supporting software, and with over 200 people trained as Certified ScrumMasters.

Yet, we still face significant challenges. It is so easy to misinterpret Scrum and the agile processes, implementing them as just another silver bullet that doesn't have to be tended to. Such questions as, "Why can't we improve our estimating by comparing actuals to estimates?" reflects the difference between implementing iterative, incremental development and agile processes such as Scrum.

Ken Schwaber will talk about Scrum, how it works, and how it scales. Using real-world experiences he will cover fixed price/fixed date contracts, identify the most common problems when implementing Scrum, and address ScrumMaster certification.

Starting Points

• Agile Alliance
• Control Chaos, the home of Scrum
• Scrum processes and engineering practices, organized by Certified ScrumMasters
• Ken's book: Agile Software Development with SCRUM

Speaker

Ken Schwaber, a developer of Scrum and current chair of the Agile Alliance, will talk about Scrum, how it works, and how it scales. He will recount real-world experiences covering fixed price/fixed date contracts, and how hard it is for people to get Scrum's full benefits.