Advantages and Disadvantages of Scrum

Do you need to define the benefits of the scrum for your business? Do it by reading this article for good.

What is Scrum Methodology?

Scrum is one of the principles of agile software development and extreme programming, DSDM and FDD.

This is also the development team workflow, and a way to achieve goals by the development team.

All Agile methods have common principles:

• work is done in iterations,
• requirements are formed dynamically,
• working groups of several specialists ensure the implementation of projects through interaction and self-organization.

The core of Scrum is an empirical approach that solves the problem of developing valuable products in a confusing environment. In addition to software development, it may also be used in project management & maintenance.

Scrum as a project management technique helps teams create large or complex products. It encourages collaboration and improvement. This happens due to encouraging the teams to become highly self-organized, learn by doing, and reflect on their successes and failures in the process.

In short, Scrum helps teams break down a large project into smaller, more manageable pieces called sprints. During the sprint, the team focuses on this part and nothing else. By working on a smaller part of a larger project, teams have the flexibility to change and adapt their approach, improving planning the project as it progresses.

Scrum maintains constant transparency throughout the process and helps team members make essential changes as they receive feedback on the project. Scrum also may allow the team to work on smaller areas of the project when other areas are stuck. It helps to solve so many problems.

What Are the Main Advantages of Scrum?

Lots of teams admit advantages of scrum in many areas of their work:

The level of collaboration

The team works together to define the sprint goals and achieve these goals. This helps teams work on large projects and break them into smaller, manageable chunks;

The feedback from the organization is continuous and the team includes it in the next version;

Smaller project sections are easier to modify;

Working in small sprints increases the likelihood that the team will catch bugs before release.

The level of client satisfaction

The service and customer satisfaction are increasing. The volume of work performed within the chosen framework may be the same, but if you constantly promise and do not meet the deadlines, they trust you less and less.

The team understands the task better, which in turn positively affects the quality of the final product. It also reduces the time for explaining problems and finding errors. During a scrum meeting, team members exchange views & the development trends.

The level of team involvement

One of the greatest advantages of scrum methodology is that managers become full-fledged team members. If you previously had a confrontation between production and managers, there is a minimum misunderstanding due to scrum. Some may believe that the production is lagging or doesn’t fulfill promises, while others may think that managers do not understand anything about the work, etc.

Now managers take part in planning – they set priorities and agree if there is a conflict of interest or timing. Previously, all tasks might go in a continuous stream and could interfere with each other. So, one of the critical advantages of scrum is the communication & responsibility aligned between all members of the working process.

In addition, there is a range of working issues you may improve despite scrum benefits and disadvantages. Here’s what can be improved with Scrum:

• Planning

Predict the team’s work for long periods, confidently promise your customers and keep your word in meeting deadlines for the ultimate satisfaction.

• Workload management

All the teams take precisely as many tasks as they can complete, and in reserve time, they take additional or urgent tasks.

• Dealing with expectations

It is more critical for us that the client has a positive impression of working with us. Therefore, we focus on quality but follow the agreed deadlines, and the client may better focus on marketing products and other things in the meantime.

• Communications

Now everyone is aware of their role in the overall process, the planning and distribution of work have become more transparent. Communication between the team, managers, and the customer has improved no matter the advantages and disadvantages of Scrum.

What Are the Main Disadvantages of Scrum?

Of course, you may easily find both pros and cons of Scrum methodology for your business.

Simply because Scrum relies on continuous teamwork and collaboration, it may be not quite the right project management tool for every team:

• Scrum can be an entirely new way of doing things, and some find it difficult in terms f adaptation;
• Everyone should be a team player, which is not always the case;
• If a team member gets out or substituted in the middle of a sprint, it can be challenging to finish it on time;
• Not everyone likes or may be available for daily meetings.

Besides, it’s often hard to define who’s in charge of the team till a particular team lead or team manager is not assigned for this role, even though all the team specialists may be pretty equal in their work shares, qualifications, and so on. Nevertheless, there are fewer disadvantages of scrum as compared to many other management models.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that Scrum is not for everyone, and there are still some scrum advantages and disadvantages to deal with, for some teams, using it can be a way of helping them when they need to complete their projects in a timely and efficient manner.

It is difficult for beginners to adapt to a different course of action. But with a collaborative process and a willingness to embrace failure and success, Scrum can be the ultimate way to get things done and make it better the next time.

Feel free to find out more on scrum methodology advantages and disadvantages with Fireart.

Michal Kapias

Chief Technology Officer

Software developer deep by heart, loves reusable components. Always put client’s needs in a first place, to find a perfect balance for golden triangle: time, money and functionality.