Scrum for Non-IT Projects

Although applied commonly to IT projects, scrum is equally useful in non-IT projects. Scrum is more about team dynamics and work culture than about any specific project management practice.

Scrum is a style of managing projects, and hence its principles can be applied in part or fully in any context. Scrum can be applied whenever the project can be broken down into meaningful increments. Take the simple case of home improvement projects that all of us indulge in at some point. These projects can be broken down into various activities, such as corking the holes, painting the walls, hanging the pictures, (re)arranging the furniture, etc. Each of the tasks is an item on the product backlog and each of the backlog tasks can be broken down into a list of tasks for the sprint. Each sprint makes a meaningful change to the house.

Scrum can be extremely useful in start-ups. The iterations effect quick feedback loops that can be imported to future tasks. This enables early track change or adaptations as required, and hence prevents unnecessary drainage of resources. This is very helpful for start-ups that have limited resources as it is.

Scrum can be applied to market research projects that precede new product launch and also to the entire new product launch project. For companies in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry, time-to-market is extremely important. Scrum fits the bill perfectly. Shorter iterations mean that the project team must be nimble enough to make rapid adjustments to meet market demand and compete effectively.

Some of the scrum principles can be applied to heavy engineering projects. These projects can be divided into tasks that form the product backlog, and these tasks must be prioritized. The priorities, however, might have to be defined more by what part of the machinery or product needs to be built before work can begin on the next, and less by what adds value to the product owner. The tasks on the product backlog get divided into sprints, and each sprint comprises of a number of sprint backlog items. There is a daily scrum meeting every morning. Each sprint delivery may not be implementable in the real sense but will definitely add meaningful value to the final product. It can be reviewed by the product owner and necessary changes may be made early on instead of allowing an oversight to trickle into the final deliverable.

We have discussed only a few applications of scrum in the non-IT context. However, as mentioned above, scrum or adaptations from it can be applied in almost any project.

References

• FUNDAMENTALS OF AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT, by Marcus Goncalves and Raj Heda
• Scrum articles for beginners