Benefits of Agile and Scrum? (a guest post by Faisal Mahmood)

I am publishing a guest post for the first time and I am happy that this post is by Faisal Mahmood – fellow Agile trainer and coach. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Curious about benefits of Agile and Scrum?

Agile and Scrum enable you to

1. Respond to market changes while controlling risk

2. Increase ROI (return on investment)

3. Continuously improve your process

4. Increase quality of your products

5. Work at a sustainable pace

Respond to market changes while controlling risk

Ignoring Agility is not an option any more in the fast moving markets of today.

Change is one of the biggest project killers. With Scrum and Agile Scrum, you do not need to be afraid of the change. Agile equips you to respond to rapid changes in the marketplace while controlling risk. It is of no use to respond to changes and become bankrupt. Scrum and Agile focus on emergent planning which empowers rapid response to changes while helping you control risks.

Increase ROI (return on investment)

60% of the features in the products never or rarely get used, but still, we keep building and maintaining products and features. This, of course, lowers our ROI. Scrum and Agile help you focus on the highest value features in your products and features. With focus on value, increase in productivity and quality, Scrum and Agile set you on a journey to higher returns.

Continuously improve your process

Scrum and Agile emphasize continuous improvement. Scrum has built in mechanism to help you see the issues that are holding you and your organization back and enable you to leverage collective intelligence of your team to devise solutions to these issues.

Increase quality of your products

Did you know that more than 50% of IT budgets are spent on maintenance? This is caused by low quality products which become painful to maintain. Scrum and Agile help you build quality right in your development process. Quality becomes part of the whole process.

Work at a sustainable pace

Agile and Scrum Teams are empowered yet accountable for delivery. They self-organize to deliver valuable increments of products at a sustainable pace.

Faisal Mahmood is the author of the book Agile Adoption Mistakes You Must Avoid. Faisal is a Certified Professional Scrum Trainer based in London, UK.