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SIVA RUSHI

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SCRUM AND XP

10MSE1063

Scrum
Scrum is an incremental, iterative framework for agile software development and project
management. Initially Scrum methodology was focused for management of software
development projects, but in recent times it can be used to run general program/project
management approach or software maintenance teams. Scrum, which contains sets of
predefined roles and practices, is often a procedure skeleton. Major roles in this method
are:
Product Owner Represents Stakeholders
Scrum Master The one responsible for maintaining the processes
Team A cross functional group of about 6-8 people who do actual design, testing,
implementation, etc.
Each of the iteration is referred to as a sprint, typical time frame for which is usually about
two to four weeks. The length of every sprint is decided by the team. The product backlog
pushes the set of features into a spring. These capabilities are prioritized set of higher level
requirements for the job to be carried out. Based on this product backlog, the team
determines how numerous of the items might be completed inside the next sprint. When
the sprint begins, nobody is allowed to alter the sprint backlog, which indicates that the
set of requirements are frozen. On effective completion of a sprint, the team demonstrates
the usage of that particular software.
This methodology should be encouraged in organizations considering that the main benefit
of making use of the Scrum is that it enables the creation of teams which are extremely
self-organizing in nature. This is achieved by encouraging verbal communication amongst
the team members, co-location of all the team members and disciplines that are involved
for the project.

Extreme Programming (XP)

It is a software program development methodology with an intention to improve software
responsiveness and high quality to the volatile requirements of consumers. Being a kind of
Agile process, it promotes frequent releases in tiny development cycles. This introduces
checkpoints and improves the productivity in a way that the new requirements from
consumers may be adopted.
XP is organized about four simple activities: coding, testing, listening, and designing

Programming in pairs or doing extensive code review, unit testing of all code, avoiding
programming of features until they are actually needed, a flat management structure,
simplicity and clarity in code, expecting changes in the customer's requirements as time
passes and the problem is better understood, and frequent communication with the
customer and among programmers are the functionality of activities.
The basic advantage of XP is that the whole process is visible and accountable. The
developers will make concrete commitments about what they will accomplish, show
concrete progress in the form of deployable software, and when a milestone is reached they
will describe exactly what they did and how and why that differed from the plan. This allows
business-oriented people to make their own business commitments with confidence, to
take advantage of opportunities as they arise, and eliminate dead-ends quickly and cheaply.

Differences between Scrum and Extreme Programming

1. Scrum teams typically work in iterations (called sprints) that are from two weeks to
one month long. XP teams typically work in iterations that are one or two weeks
long.
2. Scrum teams do not allow changes into their sprints. Once the sprint planning
meeting is completed and a commitment made to delivering a set of product
backlog items, that set of items remains unchanged through the end of the sprint.
XP teams are much more amenable to change within their iterations. As long as the
team hasn't started work on a particular feature, a new feature of equivalent size can
be swapped into the XP team's iteration in exchange for the unstarted feature.
3. Extreme Programming teams work in a strict priority order. Features to be
developed are prioritized by the customer (Scrum's Product Owner) and the team
is required to work on them in that order. By contrast, the Scrum product owner
prioritizes the product backlog but the team determines the sequence in which they
will develop the backlog items. We will never see that a Scrum team not choose to
work on the highest-priority item. And a Scrum team will very likely choose to work
on the second most important. However, at some point one of the high priority
items may not be a good fit for the sprint being planned maybe a key person who
should work on it will be swamped by work on higher priority items. Or maybe it
makes sense to work on a slightly lower priority item.
4. XP specify the software engineering practices such as test-driven development,
refactoring, pair programming, simple design, etc. Scrum specifies how we manage
the requirements or requested features.