Using Agile Scrum When Working on a Nearshore Project

What happens to the Scrum process when you are working with nearshore engineering teams?

Agile represents an overarching philosophy for software development, emphasizing the value of iterating quickly. You can read the Agile Manifesto here.

We use Scrum for project delivery, an Agile Framework that enables iterative and incremental product development. Scrum is a way to get work done as a team in small pieces at a time, with feedback loops and experimentation every step of the way so the team can learn and improve as they go.

Scrum allows teams to get things done at the right time, maximizing the value of what is delivered. Tasks are performed faster and with higher quality by self-organizing teams. Scrum is an excellent project management approach for the majority of engineering projects and is particularly well suited for nearshore and nearshore projects.

Nearshore projects are those where some project team members are based in Latin America. We typically provide consultants, project executives, and project managers out of the US, and then take advantage of the extraordinary nearshore engineering talent in Latin America.

Benefits Of Agile Scrum and Nearshore Projects

Decreased time to market – Scrum delivers value to the end customer 30 to 40 percent faster than traditional methods. Combined with the quicker engineering ramp-up time with nearshore teams, this is a significant acceleration.
Increased ROI – The decrease in time to market is one key reason that Scrum projects realize a higher return on investment (ROI).
Reduced risk – Mitigate the risk of absolute project failure (spending large amounts of time and money with no return on investment) by delivering the tangible product early for evaluation and scrutiny.
Better Quality – Projects exist to accomplish a vision or goal. Scrum provides the framework for continual feedback and exposure to ensure quality is as high as possible.
Higher Customer Satisfaction – Scrum teams are committed to producing products and services that satisfy customers.
Increased Collaboration and Ownership – When scrum teams take responsibility for projects and products, they can produce great results. Scrum teams collaborate and take ownership of quality and project performance.
Improved Progress Visibility and Exposure – Transparency and visibility make Scrum an exposure model to help the project team accurately identify issues and more accurately predict how things will go as the project progresses.
Increased Project Control – Scrum teams have numerous opportunities to control project performance and make timely corrections as needed

By leveraging Agile Scrum for nearshore projects, teams can rapidly design and build technology solutions through a series of sprints with each sprint delivering usable functionality. Periodically, completed sprint deliverables can be finalized and deployed as a production release.

Scrum Roles

The roles and staffing of a scrum project may be the most important decision made on a project.

Scrum Team – The Scrum Team is a group of collaborators who work toward completing projects and delivering products. The scrum team includes one scrum master, one product owner, and a group of developers. Within a scrum team, there is no rank or hierarchy.

Product Owner – The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team. The Product Owner is one person, not a committee, and may represent the needs of many stakeholders in the Product Backlog. This person answers questions like:

What to create?
Why create this and not something else?
How to create this?
When to create it?

The product owner bridges the gap between product strategy and development, is responsible for the product backlog and organizing sprints, and answers questions from developers.

Representative Product Owner – Because being a product owner is time-consuming and is sometimes impossible for a client to dedicate to a project, we can provide a Representative Product Owner that alleviates the burden on the Client. Representative product owners have knowledge and communication of short- and mid-term project goals, deeply understand requirements, create and maintain product backlog, respond to team’s questions and requests, and assures the team’s understanding of requirements for upcoming sprints

Scrum Master – The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness. The Scrum Master answers the question of Who creates it?

In summary, the Agile Scrum + Nearshore combination is exciting and powerful. We have seen it change the trajectory of client businesses since we started operating under this model more than a year ago.

To learn more about Agile Scrum + Nearshore combinations, reach out to us today! Kopius is a leader in nearshore digital technology consulting and services.

Additional Resources