Agile project management is an iterative and flexible approach to managing projects, emphasising collaboration, customer feedback, and the ability to adapt to changing requirements.

The term Scrum is one of the key practices that forms part of the Agile framework. It is widely used in software development to emphasise iterative and incremental development as well as foster teamwork, adaptability and continuous improvement.
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The Agile principles

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
• Responding to change over following a plan.

What it comes down to is utilising people, products, teamwork and flexibility to produce the best project outcomes. At Leighton we follow Agile methodologies wherever possible. This allows us to adapt to changes in scope while minimising impact on project development and timescales.

So, what is Scrum?

To put its imply, Scrum is a framework that can be used to deliver projects. Many of the projects we deliver utilise Scrum, thanks to the several Scrum Masters we have here at Leighton. The key ingredients behind this framework are collaboration, communication and transparency. Scrum provides the tools to break big, complex projects down into smaller, manageable, deliverable tasks that, while often codependent, can limit the impact each one has on the other.

Some of the main benefits of Scrum include:

• Frequent product deliveries.
• Less time wasted.
• Lower cost.
• Quicker production of a minimum viable product (MVP).
• Deliver stakeholder/business requirements quickly.
• Take a product to market and receive customer feedback quicker.
• Flexibility to change requirements and priorities.
• Opportunity for continuous feedback.

Scrum is all about making software development and delivery more efficient and reducing wasted time and resource.

What does Scrum mean to clients?

• Involvement - throughout the process a stakeholder representative is always involved, with frequent visibility being given to the wider stakeholder group. The representative is the product owner and advocates for the client, ensuring their needs are met. This involvement makes sure the client gets exactly what they want.
• Transparency - transparency is another big benefit, as this approach offers full visibility of tasks being worked on, progress being made, and any issues encountered ultimately ensuring effective product delivery.
• Frequent deliveries of working software -development occurs in two-to-four-week periods, known as sprints. Within this period, defined functionality is fully built and tested, meaning at the end of the sprint the functionality is handed over and ‘potentially shippable’. This means working software can be at market a lot quicker than using traditional frameworks.
• Regular opportunities to provide feedback -feedback is welcomed, as after all, it is the client’s product. What’s more, due to the nature of the development process, feedback can be brought into various project sprints to be worked on along with development items.
• Ability to prioritise items for delivery -clients prioritise the backlog of development tasks that are available to be worked on. For example, if the business needs a certain piece of functionality immediately then this can be put to the top of the list to be worked on by the development team.
• Flexibility to add and change requirements -in the demanding, ever changing digital space, this is a great benefit to clients of using Scrum.
• Reduced risk - the idea here is that risk is driven out of the project early on. Continuous testing allows any bugs to be identified early in the project so they can be rectified sooner. And progression dependencies are reduced as much as possible.
• Reduced costs - Scrum projects often come in at a lower cost to traditional projects due to the reduction in time wasted through efficient development and delivery

And what does Scrum mean to Leighton?‍

• Teamwork - Scrum teams stay together and move as a team from project to project. This ensures established ways of working and a strong sense of collaboration and openness, as everyone is committed to the team, the outcomes and success.‍
• Adaptability - for any business these days, you need to be adaptable. Being a digital organisation, this is never truer than for a company like Leighton. Having teams that are adaptable to change helps keep us at the front of our game.‍
• Efficiency - less time wasted means greater and higher quality output at a lower cost. ‍
• Motivation and empowerment -as Scrum promotes decision making on the ‘front line’ so to speak, employees have control and influence over what they are working on. Teams in Scrum are self-managing, and putting trust into the team produces better, more innovative results.
• ‍Increased productivity -teams know their goals and what it is they are striving to achieve. This clear vision, motivation and empowerment ultimately leads to increased productivity.Teams can being supportive and help each other out meaning they can quickly identify and overcoming any blockers they may have in the project.‍
• Increased quality -testing is a continuous process with Scrum, with testers involved at every stage, as well as, for example, developers performing code reviews. This approach mitigates potential problems and again, any issues are identified early in the process, allowing for them to be addressed before developing further.