Updated September 27, 2023
Difference Between Agile and Scrum
The following article provides an outline for Agile vs Scrum. Agile is a time-boxed interactive approach that incrementally builds and delivers software or applications. Instead of giving all at once at the end of the project, it works by breaking down the projects into a little bit of functionality, prioritizing them, and continuously delivering in a shorter cycle. It’s a continuous, rapid development approach to design or build a product or application. The scope is driven by budget and schedule, providing much flexibility.
Table of Contents
What is Agile?
Agile is a flexible and customer-focused approach to software development and project management. It prioritizes collaboration, adaptability, and iterative progress to deliver value to customers quickly. Agile emphasizes working in small, frequent increments, welcoming changing requirements, and involving customers throughout development. Many organizations apply Agile principles by utilizing the widely-used Scrum framework.
Agile has some quality strategies like:
- Refactoring
- Small feedback cycles
- Iteration
What is Scrum?
Scrum is a framework utilized for managing agile projects and developing products. It provides a structured approach to work by organizing tasks into fixed-length iterations called Sprints. Scrum emphasizes collaboration, transparency, and adaptability. Key elements of Scrum include roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development Team), artifacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment), and events (Sprint Planning, Daily Standup, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective) to facilitate efficient and iterative development, typically in the context of software development projects.
Head-to-Head Comparison Between Agile vs Scrum
Below are the top 14 differences between Agile and Scrum:
Key Differences Between Agile vs Scrum
Both Agile and Scrum are popular choices in the market.
Let us discuss some of the major differences between Agile vs Scrum:
- Both Agile and Scrum are iterative development. In layman’s terms, Scrum is the child, and Agile is the parent, whereas Scrum falls under the Agile process.
- Agile is Individual and interactions over process and tools.
Agile has roles:
- Programmer
- Customer
- Tester
- Tracker
- More active customer Involvement is needed in Agile.
- A typical Agile team comprises 4 developers, 1 tester, and 1 technical leader. Agile Principle Includes: The team and developers must collaborate with the daily discussion. A self-organizing team is needed for the best design of the project.
- Agile is a combination of multiple software methodologies. Here, changes in the process steps are done based on customer requirements.
- Here, customer requirements are unpredictable and change over time. ReQtest tool helps to manage needs.
- Agile has increased predictability and boosted time to market, simultaneously saving money.
- Scrum is an agile framework for managing effective Product Development.
Scrum has three roles:
- Development Team
- Product Owner
- Scrum Master
- No specific Engineering Practices are preferred.
- A typical Scrum team is 6-10 people.
Scrum Principles are:
- They deliver valuable software frequently.
- Inspect and adapt.
- Scrum is the methodology to implement agile. No changes are allowed once the sprint gets started.
- The customer requirements are put into Project Backlog.
- It doesn’t require any software development practices; it requires management practices.
When to Use Agile?
Agile methodology is ideal for projects that need flexibility, frequent adjustments, and cross-functional team collaboration. It is perfect when the project scope could be more well-defined initially, allowing for iterative development and customer feedback. Agile is effective for software development, product innovation, and industries with rapidly changing requirements. It is less suitable for highly regulated or strictly defined projects where detailed documentation and upfront planning are essential. Agile thrives in environments where responsiveness and continuous improvement are critical to success, fostering a dynamic and customer-centric approach to project management.
When to Use Scrum?
Scrum is best suited for complex projects with evolving requirements, where frequent collaboration and adaptability are crucial. It functions effectively when a project can be divided into smaller, manageable parts and requires regular stakeholder feedback. With its roles, ceremonies, and time-boxed iterations, Scrum’s framework helps teams maintain focus, transparency, and flexibility, making it an ideal choice for software development, product development, and other creative endeavors.
Agile vs Scrum Comparison Table
Below is the topmost comparison between Agile and Scrum.
| Aspects | Agile | Scrum |
| Definition | Agile is an incremental and iterative model development. | It is an incremental model(building the product over some time one by one) that is a type of agile approach. They follow fixed-length iterations. To optimize prediction and control risks. |
| Manpower | Developers and Business people must work together throughout the project. | Scrum begins with the product vision. The product owner and the teamwork over the projects. |
| Planning | Planning occurs at three levels:
|
Iteration Planning is referred to as sprint in Scrum.
|
| Flexibility | The great advantage is its flexibility as it rapidly responds to changes. | Compared to Agile, they are very rigid (no frequent changes). They have clearly defined rules. |
| Mode of Communication | The practical method of communication is face-to-face within a team. | Communication is done on a daily/weekly basis concerning the print schedule. |
| Ease of Change | They focus on customer satisfaction and deliver results frequently without a change in environments. | They are suitable for projects that require rapidly changing environments. |
| Process Flow | The agile process includes:
|
The Scrum Process includes:
|
| Performance Scope | Agile is engaged with project development to create software applications. It gives more benefits than the waterfall model. A process that values functional deliverables over comprehensive documents. | It doesn’t require any software development methods to use. It is simply a framework, not a strategy. |
| Performance Role | Agile development has a Leadership role in monitoring all the steps. | There is no Project Manager to direct the product release; Scrum has a scrum Master who follows the scrum process. He organizes meetings and ensures the product backlog for the next sprint. His committed role is to report on progress. |
| Performance-Based on Team | Agile work requires teamwork throughout the software development process. | Scrum requires Sprint functionality to start planning meetings. During each progress sprint, they release portions of the product. |
| Performance-Based on Accuracy | Refactoring is done here, which means modifying the code without changing its functionality to improve performance. | Task boards and burndown charts are necessary to follow up on the progress. |
| Based on Testing | Agile tester prioritizes the work based on requirements with ethical concepts and principles. Testing is continuous and tests early. | The tester follows test cases to identify issues in the development. Software developers cannot be testers. Testing methodology is based on ‘Test Driven Design Methodology,’ which speeds up our development process. |
| Stand up Meeting | Sprint planning | Daily stand-up meeting in Scrum helps the team discuss how many tasks Have been completed and how to resolve technical issues. |
| Estimating Time & Delivery | The company delivers the product frequently based on customer satisfaction. | Estimating time is calculated as Story Cost *(Staff Overhead +1) *(Estimated Risk +1). Task details estimation can be viewed at the end of each sprint. They have frequent delivery. |
Conclusion
As the technology market is growing at a rapid pace and in a competitive environment, any business team would like to build a product or deliver their ideas in a way that supplies the profit in a fast-growing method and also gets many customers to buy their product. The agile process mainly focuses on satisfying the customers by providing a sequence of valuable software delivery. The main added feature of agile is its flexibility to react to rapid changes. Scrum is an agile framework that focuses on the highest business values.
Customer feedback is reflected in the final sprint. They have simplicity in the process, increasing productivity and improved communication, and do not wait for the planning and design cycle to complete like a traditional waterfall model. The product backlog supports live production applications, and the agile methodology emphasizes progressive and repetitive work, while teams use Scrum in software development.
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