SCRUM: increase the productivity of your IT team

With the advancement of technology and market demands for technological solutions and tools, the IT market has gained more and more prominence. In this sense, an agile methodology such as SCRUM It makes all the difference when it comes to offering a quality product.

The competitiveness of the IT market has required teams to be increasingly agile and efficient. For this purpose, SCRUM was born: an agile methodology that, when implemented correctly, enhances your team’s productivity. 

What is the methodology SCRUM ? 

The operations of an IT team can be very complex. The market has demanded increasingly innovative products in an increasingly shorter period of time. 

Therefore, the workflow of these teams is usually intense, requiring teams to adopt strategies that optimize processes, ensuring the quality of delivery. 

THE SCRUM is a method developed in 1993 by Jeff Sutherland with the aim of facilitating and optimizing the delivery processes of IT teams. 

Despite having been created to serve the area of softwares, today the SCRUM It can be applied to project management in any area. 

This agile methodology increases team productivity without compromising the quality of results. This way, it is possible to adapt to the needs of the current market and stand out from the competition. 

How does it work? 

THE SCRUM is based on the idea that project management demands much more from the manager and his team than just theoretical knowledge of how a project should be carried out.

Processes become truly efficient through several attempts to identify what has worked well and what has gone wrong. 

It is based on this dynamic that the SCRUM works. Its main idea is to ensure that a project is evaluated several times during its development, so that at the end of the process, the product meets the customer’s expectations. 

To understand the SCRUM, first you need to understand that the methodology has its own nomenclature. Before explaining how it can be applied to your IT team, let’s contextualize what each of the terms in the term means. SCRUM. 

SCRUM roles, events and components 

It is necessary to know that within a team that uses the SCRUM, each member has a specific and essential role for the development of the product. Furthermore, the methodology is made up of events and components that may seem complex, but are actually very simple and make processes much more efficient. 

Product owner

THE product owner has the role of being a customer representative. In other words, he must know all the details of customer demand and expectations. So, he can guide the team regarding the necessary adjustments to the product. 

Scrum master

THE Scrum master is the operations leader. Its role is to apply the practices of SCRUM correctly, thus ensuring the quality of deliveries and the agile functioning of processes 

Scrum team

They are responsible for executing the project. These employees are the ones who keep operations running. 

Product Backlog

THE product backlog is the list of all tasks that must be performed until the product is delivered. Initially it is defined by Product Owner, but as the process progresses, it can be updated by any member who identifies a task to be performed. 

Daily Scrum

These are daily meetings with the aim of getting everyone on the team on the same page regarding the development of the project. Each member must be able to answer the following questions: “What tasks were done yesterday?” “Which ones will be executed today?” and “Are there any obstacles to be overcome?” 

Sprints

Sprints These are the Scrum interaction cycles. In each cycle, the team works on an improvement of the product. They can range from two to six weeks. 

Ideally, the more complex the project, the shorter the sprints. Thus, the team carries out the review several times and in a shorter period of time, ensuring that the project is well understood. 

Sprint Planning Meeting

It is the meeting where each sprint is planned. It defines those responsible for the tasks, their roles and what will be carried out. This plan is constantly reviewed in Daily Meetings. 

A tool for project management how Gipo makes planning simpler and more organized. Using Gipo, you can create tasks, assign them to those responsible and set deadlines for their delivery. 

Additionally, steps can be created to make the flow of tasks more visual. A step can be created to store the tasks of the backlog, for example. 

Sprint Review Meeting

It is a meeting held at the end of each sprint, so that what was produced during that cycle is presented. Thus, the team analyzes whether the goal of that sprint was achieved. 

How to apply Scrum in IT management? 

As previously stated, the methodology was initially created to serve IT processes. Despite having expanded to other areas, the SCRUM continues to meet the needs of software development teams. 

Start applying the SCRUM into your IT team with training. Make sure all employees know and understand how the process works. 

Once that’s done, assemble your team. Set the Product owner, the scrum master and the scrum team. Once this is done, the product owner must create the backlog of the product, so that tasks can be defined and responsibilities divided among the development team. 

With the functions and tasks defined, establish the deadlines for each task, so that it is possible to predict the interval time between each sprint. 

Once this is done, just hold the daily meetings and keep the process moving. With the start of the first sprint, evaluate the positive and negative points of this first interaction and plan the next steps. 

The Gipo allows the Scrum master track how much time was spent on each task by each member. Time management and time tracking They are essential to understand what type of task is demanding the most effort from employees.  

Thus, every sprint the process and product is reviewed, ensuring that the project is developed quickly, but without losing quality. The constant reviews of the SCRUM they avoid rework and ensure that with each interaction the product is closer to what the customer expects.