The main goal of agile methods is minimizing the risk by developing software in short timeboxes, called iterations, which typically last one to four weeks. Each timebox is like a mini software project that includes all the tasks necessary to release the mini-increment of new functionality

Main principles of Agile software development methodology: face-to-face meetings, constant cooperation, early and continuous delivery of the working software, transparency. Whenever there are unexpected or frequent changes either from the client’s side or internal, this model becomes the perfect choice for managers and team leaders.

The iteration may not add enough functionality to warrant releasing the product, but an agile software project intends to be capable of releasing new software at the end of every iteration. After this iteration, the team reevaluates project priorities. Agile methods emphasize working product as the primary measure of the progress. Relative to the other methods Agile produce very little written documentation – the “real-time” is the preferable type of communication. Most of the development team members (and business owners too) are located nearby and can communicate face-to-face.

Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile software development framework for managing product development. It defines a flexible, holistic product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal. This method enables teams to self-organize by encouraging physical co-location or close online collaboration of all team members, as well as daily face-to-face communication among all team members and disciplines involved.

A key principle of Scrum is the dual recognition that customers will change their minds about what they want or need (requirements volatility) and that there will. Scrum adopts an evidence-based empirical approach—accepting that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined up front, and instead focusing on how to maximize the team’s ability to deliver quickly, to respond to emerging requirements, and to adapt to evolving technologies and changes in market conditions.

• a living backlog of prioritized work to be done
• completion of a fixed set of backlog items in a series of short iterations or sprints
• a brief daily meeting (“a scrum”) for explaining the progress, describing an upcoming work and possible obstacles
• a brief planning session in which the backlog items for the sprint will be defined
• a brief heartbeat retrospective when all team members reflect about the past sprint

Scrum is facilitated by a scrum master, whose primary job is to remove impediments to the ability of the team to deliver the sprint goal. The scrum master is not the leader of the team (as they are selforganizing) but acts as a productivity buffer between the team and any destabilizing influences

This method encourages verbal communication across all team members and across all disciplines that are involved in the project

Unlike Kanban, Scrum is more timeboxed and planned. The entire project is split up into timeboxes called Sprints, and all the team sit together and plan for each Sprint the list of tasks or user stories that need to be completed. Once the team agrees and commits to completing certain tasks in a given time frame, the development team is expected to stick to the commitment and complete all tasks within the Sprint. Scrum is best suited when

Scrum is best suited when the cost of delay is high and deadlines should meet a minimal delay. Scrum is often used when the end product is unclear or the requirements have no proper feedback from the clients. Here the client is involved in the whole process and determine and focus on certain sprint product backlog items that need to be completed (along with the team). Scrum takes its place among flexible methodologies that are appropriate for long-run development with frequent changes to requirements. In other words, it is suitable for projects that demand over 300 hours of development.

Unlike Waterfall, the Scrum model adopts more flexible disciplines which are open to last-minute changes. Teamwork, inspection, and transparency are key factors in the Scrum method.

product backlog (a set of top-priority tasks allowing to build MVP as soon as possible)

sprint backlog (contains high priority features that developers are going to deal with following 2-4 weeks

This growth methodology is used for prompt development of software that happens to include a series of iterations to generate required software. It brings the deliberate progressing projects on track