successfully integrating scrum in your business

Managers and project managers have to respond increasingly quickly to their clients’ requests whilst respecting the budget and delivering the expected quality. Scrum can effectively address these challenges, but its implementation requires appropriate management of the resulting changes.

a performance vector

Scrum is now recognised as an excellent way to improve the performance of development projects, especially in the following three areas: the added value of the delivered features, the quality of the final product and the organisation’s responsiveness to common client change requests.
However, in the face of a sometimes radical or reductive discourse by some, companies wonder about the compatibility of Scrum with their organisation and their ongoing processes. They fear that its implementation within a traditional project management framework will “call everything into question”.
This is not the case. If Scrum is based on a way of doing things and on specific roles to improve team productivity, Scrum project management is based on the basic principles of project management. Simply put, the deployment of Scrum and its integration into the existing environment requires appropriate change management, as with any new product. This allows Scrum to fit well into the context of a PMO and existing project management practices.

frequently asked questions

• Are our project management processes and standards compatible with Scrum?
• What about the PMO guidelines?
• Do we still need a project manager?
• What happens to my project reports?
• Will risk management continue?

the itecor approach

Itecor’s approach is to make the most of both worlds, adapting them in a progressive and structured way to achieve the planned objectives.
Itecor, therefore, offers its clients a pragmatic approach, tested and improved over the years by an experienced team of Scrum Coaches, all of whom are also experienced in “classic” project management practices. This approach is based on the following steps:

1. Assessment of the environment: prior to implementing Scrum, it is necessary to identify the objectives to be achieved and to assess the existing processes and teams, the culture as well as the organisation’s adaptability. This step also enables us to identify the constraints of integration in terms of organisation (project manager, steering committee, PMO, etc.) and practices (risks, communication, performance, etc.).
   An evaluation report concludes this first step. It summarises the strengths, weaknesses, constraints and solutions to consider in Scrum deployment.
2. Pilot project: a first project allows us to introduce, measure and fine-tune the necessary changes in terms of both equipment and process. It also demonstrates the benefits of introducing Scrum in the organisation. One of our Scrum Coaches accompanies the project team (5 to 7 people) for the entire duration of the project, ideally about 3 months (3 to 4 stints of 2 to 4 weeks).
   This second step culminates in the formalisation and sharing of lessons learned with demonstrable results. They form the baseline and vectors of success and adoption of Scrum for other projects.
3. “Discovery” projects: Scrum deployment is then extended to other projects selected on the basis of their potential to identify new best practices and accumulate experiences and lessons for use. They are used to refine Scrum adoption and organisational efficiency.
   These projects are supervised by Scrum Coaches, and the first Scrum Masters are trained and certified. A community of interest emerges, and a Scrum communication and familiarisation plan is launched and executed.
4. Scrum training: Scrum, although simple and easy to understand, is never adopted in organisations without reluctance and resistance to change. Constant communication and training is required for the new roles of Product Owner, Scrum Master and Scrum Team Member. Our Scrum Coaches help define training plans and train teams in Scrum and Scrum roles using the specific training material that Itecor has developed.
   Itecor also provides certification training for the Scrum Master role.
5. Industrialisation and coaching: the best practices identified by the uncovered projects are the guarantors of a successful deployment of Scrum on a larger scale and of the constant improvement of the organisation’s capabilities. Depending on the circumstances, the Scrum Coaches will assist and guide the newly Scrum-tested teams until they achieve the expected results.

intended benefits

• Greater organisational agility
• Culture of leadership and collaboration
• Improved equipment performance
• Higher quality products and solutions
• Increased delivery capacity
• Better use of financial resources

scrum: values, quality and agility

• Value: Scrum emphasises the rapid release of the most useful features to the organisation based on the value they represent. This fast delivery approach allows the company to reap the benefits of its investments gradually and without delay. Scrum thereby supports the generation of value and the acceleration of return on investment.
• Quality: Ongoing customer involvement and regular review of components during the development process helps reduce defects and ensures that change requests are addressed immediately. This way, Scrum can produce high-quality results.
• Agility: The list of features to be delivered is managed by the customers, who are responsible for constantly updating and improving it. They are also the ones who decide on priorities. Combined with iterative development, this approach enables us to respond quickly to needs and fosters business agility and responsiveness to market and competitive pressures.