SCRUM beyond software Research on functional areas methodology applications for greater business value

Scrum is an Agile approach to creating a new product. The product is often thought to be software, but it can be anything that has value for an individual or corporation, for example, a marketing campaign, conference, video podcast or even a car. Scrum is based on delivering the product in small pieces, which means that at any moment the owner knows where they are and has a working version of the product.
Nowadays, Scrum methodology is one of the most popular agile methodologies in IT project management, based on Agile principles. It is a methodology that gives the opportunity to solve complex problems and to adapt the product to the customer's requirements at any given time. Scrum enables efficient and innovative creation of the product, with the highest possible quality for the client, due to the iterative and incremental control process.
Even though Scrum is mostly known as a software development methodology, due to its clear value proposition, it this paper I will cover possible implementations of Scrum in other functional areas such as marketing, finance, sales or operations. 

Agile manifesto and Scrum revolution 
​

Manifesto for Agile Software Development
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. 
Scrum as a concept is often used interchangeably with Agile, since well-used Scrum can be the way to achieve the agile approach to software development. This means that if used correctly, it fulfills four basic assumptions of Agile Manifesto and 12 Agile principles. There are other ways to implement Agile Manifesto, such as Extreme Programming (XP), Kanban, DSDM, Crystal or Lean Startup - a whole family of agile methods has been developed. However, reports such as State of Agile from Version One, or lists of people who have obtained certifications clearly show that Scrum dominated the world of Agile.
Essentially, according to the will of the Scrum founders, we should not define it as a method, and rather as a framework within which we can produce valuable products through process management that offers a very clear demonstration of the effectiveness of software development practices. 

Scrum overview and processes

 
Scrum is not an extensive methodology, but rather a set of simple rules that allows to quickly get feedback on what's happening with the product and how our process works.
Scrum is based on three pillars. The first is transparency, which allows every member of the team to see what is really going on. If the team says that they have completed the work on the functionality it means that it works and the client can use it. If there are delays compared to the ambitious plans of the Product Owner, they are immediately visible. If there is any dysfunction in the organization (e.g members of different departments do not cooperate with each other), it is also immediately seen. Transparency allows to inspect, or analyze what is happening in a team, product or organization. Therefore, Scrum allows to quickly notice problems (e.g slow response time of the system) but also opportunities. These can be addressed by adaptation, that is, changing plans and adapting the process or product to reality. This could be, for example, a change in the scope, technology or the way the team works. 

​

Methodology implementation 
​

The Scrum framework was built with a minimal set of roles, events and artifacts. The relationships between these elements are determined by simple rules. Since 2009, the authors describe subsequent versions in the Scrum Guide. This document contains a full description, therefore, the things described there are unbreakable elements and the necessary minimum. Everything is also an addition, better or worse practice. 

​

Roles

Scrum is based on the work of the team, which has all the necessary skills and resources to make the product, which means that team members will have different, complementary competencies - for example, analysis, programming and testing. The team is called Developer, because it is responsible for the development, or development of this product.
In addition to the team, there is a Product Owner in Scrum who has a vision of the product and can decide what is most important at the moment.
The last role is the Scrum Master, which focuses on how the team operates and helps to solve day to day problems, ensuring that the team can work in the most efficient way.
The team provides subsequent versions of the operating product in short cycles called Sprint. Each Sprint is limited in time and lasts a maximum of one month (usually from one week to four, the most popular are Sprints of two weeks). This guarantees the Product Owner that he or she knows how much work is invested and if something bad happens, they will not lose more than the length of the Sprint. Therefore, there is no risk that for half a year it will not be known what is happening with his product and when the work will finally end. What's more, the team together with the PO clearly determines what it means that the product works (Definition of Completion, Definition of Done, DoD) to avoid surprises so often encountered especially in software development.
The Product Owner places a list of all needs in the Product Backlog in order from the most important to the least important one. The goal of Product Owner is to present a new version of the product at the end of Sprint to its stakeholders, customers and users, so that they can get feedback from them. Therefore, at the beginning of the Sprint, the team determines what and how it is able to deliver from the Product Backlog. This meeting is called Sprint Planning and even with Sprints of one month it should not last longer than one day. The plan itself is called the Sprint Backlog to distinguish it from the Product Backlog. Because the team is who creates the plan, they know how to implement it. That's why the team synchronizes every day to see if the goal is still real and how individual members can help each other. This short meeting is called Daily Scrum or Daily Stand Up and should not exceed 15 minutes. During the sprint, the team also wants to prepare for the next one by reviewing, discussing and organizing the Product Backlog. For the Backlog Refinement, the team usually devotes 5-10% of all time from Sprint.
When Sprint comes to an end, the team together with the PO does Sprint Review and gathers feedback that will help to find out what stakeholders and users think about the product improvements. During the Sprint Retrospective, the team determines how it can work more effectively, what went wrong and could be done better, as learning points for upcoming sprints. 

SCRUM as growth enabler 
​

Taking into account the structure and methodology, Scrum serves as a growth enabler for many companies. The structure has great impact on efficiency and velocity of learnings. One of the most important tools for increasing the efficiency of agile teams is the Retrospective. It is not lessons learned that takes place after the project - that is, after the activities have been completed, but it is a meeting after each sprint. The team summarizes its activities, verifies errors and can influence its activities in the next sprint. This works extremely motivating for people in the team who can observe their development in a short time. Teams illustrate daily progress on the scrum board. It is a task plan for the entire sprint showing which tasks are still to be done, which are in progress and which have already been completed. Thanks to this, everyone knows at what stage they are, how much is left until the end, whether the team is on the right track to achieve the objectives of the sprint and who is currently working on what. Agile is based on an empirical approach. This means that knowledge results from experience and making decisions is based on what is known. With each sprint each team draws conclusions from previous actions and improves their work, but also makes predictability of delivery better, which increases the confidence in the team and reduces the level of stress. Finally, agile builds the team's culture. The goal is to streamline operations, introduce changes that will allow the team to work better instead of punishing for mistakes. All these make scrum an excellent tool that increases efficiency and enables growth within the company. 

​

SCRUM as growth enabler

Due to the principles of transparency, inspection and adaptation, Scrum has a lot of possible implementations beyond software development. One of the possible ones which has been recently studied is construction one, where measuring progress is of utter importance for the project success. Project managers say after the team started using the Scrum system they could finally measure their progress by real quantification per cycle called productivity score, instead of relying only on Gantt charts to track progress. In Scrum the accountability is public, and everyone can see at any moment who is doing what and what is the current status of the cycle in terms of meeting goals. 



​

Application of SCRUM in different functional areas 
​

Marketing

There are two main reasons why companies are not able to respond quickly to all emerging changes in the market. The first culprit is the scaled, hierarchical structure of many organizations. The second barrier is the traditional work model - waterfall. While it worked under certain stable conditions, such a traditional approach under conditions of uncertainty threatens to issue effects of work after a fixed period or in many cases that do not meet expectations.
Agile is the recipe for both problems. The agile approach destroys the existing known organization patterns and flattens the structure by putting on interdisciplinary teams. Thanks to this, all specialists (graphic designer, SEO specialist, copywriter, analyst, social media marketer etc.) are gathered in one place, so there is no external interference needed to successfully complete assigned tasks.
Agile marketing allows to focus attention on the user and their expectations. This allows to provide a specific value that exactly matches users needs. Thanks to iterations and their short duration, the risk associated with making wrong decisions is limited and it is easier to adapt to sudden changes.
For marketing, the core concepts of Scrum have to be slightly modified. Sprint goal should be a clear deliverable, for example, “Audit the site and gather feedback” while the other could be “Send first mockups to client”. Any extra requests are put in the backlog and are handled by Marketing Manager acting as product owner.
Before a sprint goal can be established, a Scrum team runs a sprint planning session, in which they define the work to be done and the sprint goal for the upcoming sprint. Once the team has decided what items from the backlog to prioritize, they then work together to establish the overriding goals for the sprint and how to achieve them. All the rest of the tasks is put on the sprint backlog. Marketing teams should also have daily standups, in which they answer the three core questions:
1. What did I do yesterday to help the team reach the sprint goal?
2. What will I do today to help the team reach the sprint goal?
3. What are the problems that make me unable to meet the sprint goal?
The important part for marketing team is to cut off unnecessary meetings and let the team focus on delivering towards sprint goal. Once the sprint is over, it is time to do the review, in which all the solved backlog problems are discussed, the team talks about what has been done and how to improve next sprint. 

​

Finance

In order to implement agile across a business, teams need to work together differently than they were used to. One of the major changes is for employees to stop performing tasks in isolation and convert into a cross-disciplinary, collaborative ones. 

In finance, this may mean gathering the accounting tasks, invoicing, paying vendors, reconciling accounts, reporting, tax preparation, collections, expenses reports, and tracking foreign revenue and put them into sprint backlog. Every member of the team gets tasks assigned at the beginning of the sprint and the team can use a board so that it is clear what they are working at in any given time.
In finance, implementation of scrum depends heavily on the structure of the company and the team members, but the pillars of transparency, inspection and adaptation along with the core roles and getting the task separated into more bearable chunks can be implemented. One case study supported dividing the budget control into a quarterly basis. While it’s not an option for every business, it definitely can be valuable for many teams. 

​

Sales

At the beginning of the sales process, Scrum promotes the work of salesperson or marketing department as a separate entity in the company. As a rule, sales managers operate with clients individually although in B2B they often rely on support from the marketing department to generate the right number of leads in the sales funnel. An efficient salesperson is able to conduct the first interviews with a potential client independently and only at the stage when specialist knowledge is needed should it act as a Product Owner of a given sales process and create a team modeled on Scrum, consisting, for example, of a Business Analyst, Architect of Solutions, Delivery Manager etc. By defining tasks in the backlog properly (and using, for example, publicly available tools as Jira or Asana), it can appropriately prioritize, monitor status, organize "daily" meetings or organize a team meeting with the client.
The model described can be used by selecting events and artifacts known from Scrum, such as sprints or a retrospective. If the process of obtaining a client lasts 3 to 6 months, it is easy to break this time into, for example, two-week sprints, and thus monitor the progress and costs associated with sales activities for a given customer. It's also easy to stop the project when the salesperson realises that closure is unlikely. The progress can be discussed with the potential client during the sprint review and, during the retrospective, indicate the three most important elements to improve during the communication process and the client acquisition. In addition, once the client has been acquired, it is easy to move to Kanban-based processes to further manage the account.

The key in this process, however, is a thorough understanding of the Agile approach, especially Scrum / Kanban, and not only by the sales managers, but also the rest of the team that supports them. It also requires significant modifications, which, according to the rules of Scrum Guide, means that it no longer has to be Scrum in its pure form. On the other hand, if it helps us to manage the team efficiently, the sales process and finally sign a contract with the client, it is worth considering this type of approach. 

Operations

Whenever it makes sense to implement some form of Scrum in the department or stick to the waterfall management is a question of efficiency. When repeatable and well known tasks are to be managed on a daily basis, implementation of Scrum, even highly modified, is probably not the best solutions. Kanban, however, can help to visually manage the work flow.
Kanban boards are a variation of the traditional kanban system, consisting in organizing the production process so that each organizational unit produces exactly what is needed at the moment, based on the circulation of product cards and card flow analysis. There are tasks to be carried out on the kanban board, presented using coloured cards. The cards are moved from left to right through successive columns of the table, which correspond to successive stages of the process. The most common tables are divided into three columns: "To do", "In progress" and "Done”. Those can be used to track all tasks, regardless of duration or frequency. 

​

A daily stand-up within operations team may improve communication and collaboration and a periodic retrospective can help with learning and making process improvements, however, in this case, it consists mostly on implementation of management best practices than Scrum framework. 

​

Final conclusions

Scrum is an incredibly useful framework that consists of three core pillars, set of roles and basic process consisting on planning, development and retrospective in a limited time. Although Scrum should be implemented in its pure form to guarantee success, as a framework it is open to modification that can bring value to different functional areas beyond software development.
To verify whether Scrum makes sense in an area, it’s important to understand how many new projects the area is producing and whether it’s merely based on the same repeatable tasks or brings something different and unique with every sprint (ex. New clients to be closed or deals to analyse).
Scrum as a framework can definitely bring a lot of business value and managers should feel encouraged to experiment with it within their departments. 

​