Rugby, Anyone?

Scrum is a good alternative for flexible programming that turns around a fast product.

by Brian Noyes, June 28, 2002.

In a rugby game, a scrum is a part of the game that is a cross between a kickoff and a quarterback snap in American football: a "play in which the forwards of each side come together in a tight formation and struggle to gain possession of the ball when it is tossed in among them," as defined by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. In a software development context, Scrum is an agile software-management process characterized, among other things, by quick daily meetings to report on project status. It has not received nearly as much attention as EXtreme Programming (XP) or Rational Unified Process (RUP), but it's gaining popularity and it's simple to understand. Like XP and RUP, Scrum tries to address the shortcomings of traditional software processes, where the assumptions that software development can be repeatable and well defined were often flawed.