At a meeting in 2001, a group of experts in software development wrote a set of four values and supporting principles that would later become known as Agile. The meeting included three Scrum experts and the four founders of eXtreme Programming, the only two widely implemented development processes at the time. The founders of these processes communicated through internet newsgroups and shared ideas as early as 1994.
Other experts in attendance had written about more adaptable and flexible development processes to replace IBM’s Rational Unified Process, which was too cumbersome for many developers.
While Scrum and XP are considered the “parents” of Agile, Agile is not an operational framework or implementation, but rather an abstract concept. In practice, over 80% of Agile teams, today use a variant of Scrum.
The most skilled teams implement XP practices within Scrum, such as continuous integration and deployment to production at least once per sprint. This practice was a hallmark of the original Scrum and XP teams and is now widely promoted by the DevOps movement.
However, according to data from the Standish Group, more than 50% of “agile” teams are unable to deliver at the end of a sprint, going over budget and leaving customers dissatisfied. It’s important to be aware of “false” Agile and false messiahs of agility. By understanding the difference between Scrum and Agile, teams can adopt the best practices to succeed in software development.
