What is Agile methodology and why is it important for Persei vivarium?

Agile is a project management methodology that was created by 17 software developers in 2001. Agile was first created for software development projects but nowadays Agile methodology is being implemented in almost all sectors and industries. Indeed, the main objective was to create an iterative approach, to deliver incremental changes that bring more business value to the projects. In fact, Agile is not just a methodology, it is a mindset, so they have created principles and values.

In addition, the purpose of using Agile methodology is to have a short development cycle that consists of a two-week cycle that they call a sprint. This helps the developers to continuously improve their product by receiving feedback after each sprint, to adapt to change, to have a cross-functional team and face-to-face communication between the development team, the manager, and the client.

And… What is Scrum?

To start with, Agile methodology has many frameworks such as Scrum, KANBAN, Extreme Programing (XP), FDD, and many more. The most used framework in Agile is Scrum because it helps to facilitate the work of developing, delivering, and sustaining complex projects.

Scrum has 3 different roles:

1. Product owner, who is responsible for the whole project and has a direct link with the stakeholder. Their main responsibility is to create the product backlog that is a prioritized feature list, containing a short description of all activities needed in the product.
2. Scrum master, who is a bridge between the product owner and the development team to help them understand what the product owner needs. He or she is the most expert in Scrum and guides the team.
3. Development team, containing the different roles needed to complete the project. Their work depends on the tasks given in the sprint backlog to create a usable increment in each sprint.

Use of Agile at Persei vivarium

In Persei vivarium, we use Scrum methodology in all our projects, consisting of many sprints, with each sprint 2 weeks long, and we implement all the events that occur in Scrum:

1. Sprint Planning: to establish the work needed for the sprint and assign it to each development team member;
2. Daily Scrum: to discuss what work was achieved the day before, and the work planned for the day;
3. Sprint Review: to review the work completed during the sprint, the goals achieved and the progress towards the completion of the deliverables; and
4. Sprint Retrospective: to analyze the structure and work done during the sprint to better prepare the upcoming ones.

All Persei vivarium projects are related to technology, so the use of Scrum methodology helps us to be more flexible in our projects and gives us the advantage of being able to adapt to changes that occur all the time. In addition, Scrum helps us to be more precise in our planning phase, because the planning phase happens before each sprint. Our goal is to plan the tasks that will occur in the next sprint, so we don’t need to plan all the tasks at the same time.

To conclude, the use of Scrum has enabled us to be more productive, gain time, and be more flexible in time and in scope.

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