Scrum vs. Plan-Based Software Development Strategies

A system is needed to reduce the cost of managing students’ information and automate the processes which work with the information. The project to create a system to support the education institution can be done with Scrum-based approach or a plane-based software engineering approach. Under each of the approaches, there are different challenges the project team may run into to overcome while working on the project. The Scrum approach may have more effectiveness over a plan-based approach in planning allocation of people, costs of the project, team cohesion, and managing changes in the team membership.
When implementing a new software program, there are different approaches which can be used to manage the project. One of the approaches is the Scrum approach which is an agile method focusing on managing the iterative development instead of specific technical approach. According to Sommerville (2011), the agile method uses incremental development methods for small systems and gives user access to new sections every few weeks based on feedback to make changes, (p 58). With the Scrum approach, there are three phases where the project is outlined, then sprint cycle which is a repetition of tasks to complete the project, and then project closure. With using the sprint cycle of the Scrum approach, a tasked is reviewed and priorities are set and the requirements are introduced. Then the project team works with the customers to select the part of the system to be worked on. After the selection process, the software is developed and then reviewed. After the software has been reviewed, the next cycle starts from the feedback to make changes or add more features to the software. With the new system for the education institution, the first pa...

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... has a set of agreed to rules and procedures to follow (Hanlon). The Scrum approach is more effective at managing changes in the project team membership because with the daily meetings, new members can be introduced easier to everyone. Like with the team cohesion, people will learn more about the new members and work better together. With the planned approach, new team members may be introduced to the team by email to make other members aware of who is working on certain tasks but not have much interaction with them as they would in daily meetings.

Works Cited

Hanlon, H. (n.d.). How to form scrum teams. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/how_6952048_form-scrum-teams.html Schwalbe, K. (2011). Information Technology Project Management. (P. 197). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Sommerville, I. (2011). Software Engineering. (p. 58). Boston, MA: Learning Solutions.