Can Scrum be used in any type of project and in any industry?

Probably this is one of the most frequently asked questions in relation to implementation of Scrum and still baffles everyone. The old school of Scrum was very apprehensive about Scrum being used beyond software development. No prize in guessing that the inventors and early followers were from software development background and they never thought of taking Scrum beyond their own backyard. The lack of vision in the early adopters hurt the Scrum framework badly. In fact, Scrum was so crippled by this limited mind-set or simplistic vision that after almost 2 decades of its first use, it is still called as an ‘Agile Software Development’ framework and not a generic project management framework. For many years, people graduating (yes, you read it correct) in this framework, are trained to see this through the glass of few selected “so called” experts. It’s like “I am passing my ‘KFC’ secret recipe to you. Damn you, if you try to use other ingredients in my chicken or try to use my secret formula in other recipe.” The vision never grew beyond the backyard.

The philosophy behind Scrum was very powerful and it could have easily become the most efficient and popular project management framework 10 years back. Scrum talks about flexibility and adaptability, but the same ingredients were missing in its very existence. It was largely restricted to software or product development.

Thankfully Scrum has evolved to some extent over the years. The new generation of project managers and many innovative companies have tried to use Scrum philosophies beyond IT software development or product development. Today, we can see people experimenting with Scrum in any kind of projects imaginable with excellent success rate. Of course, following Scrum does not guarantee success in your projects. The key is to proper tailoring of the framework to suit your project need and to execute effectively. In spite of growing success of Scrum projects, until recently there was no unified collaboration to make it a standard best management practice. There are thousands of books on Scrum written by individual authors from their experience but those are mere case studies or memoir of individual experience. Finally, SCRUMstudy tried to came up with a generic, industry agnostic ‘Scrum Body of Knowledge’ by collaborating with several Scrum experts. The SBOK Guide has suggested a structured framework of implementing Scrum in all types of projects across all industries. We are sure the first edition of the SBOK Guide will be far from perfect; but no doubt this noble effort from SCRUMstudy has built the much needed foundation to make Scrum a sought after project management philosophy.