Scrum Agile Project Management Methodology Application for Workflow

Management: A Case Study

L. B. Carneiro1, A. C. C. L. M. Silva1, L. H. Alencar1
1
Management Engineering Department, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
(laurabcarneiro@gmail.com; anacarolinaluna@hotmail.com; alencarlh@cdsid.org.br)

Abstract - The management of routine activities involves
activity planning, goal alignment, and optimization of
resources, in general, the same efforts needed to manage a
project. In this sense, this research intended to find a
methodology that could be adapted to the management of a
department of a public company, aiming at continuous
improvement of its performance. Within the project
management field there are the traditional and the agile
methodologies. Agile project management methodologies are
characterized by being simple, flexible and dynamic, easily
responding to changes and promoting team integration.
Scrum methodology is one of the most popular because it is
affordable and does not require extensive documentation.
This work aimed to show how it was possible to use Scrum in
the management of routines, making the necessary
adaptations, and presenting the performance indicators to
evaluate the improvements achieved with the use of the tool.
As a result, better planning of activities, prioritization of
tasks, constant monitoring of the activities, better flow of
routine work, better delivery quality and greater alignment
among team members were observed.
Keywords - Agile Project Management Methodology,
Scrum, management of routines, case study
I. INTRODUCTION
Managing work routines is necessary to meet goals
and deadlines in the corporate environment, making teams
work with clarity and focus on expected results. Thus, the
search for tools that propitiate the adequate management
of the activities in a company is fundamental for the use
of available resources and the achievement of sectorial
and institutional objectives [1], [2]. In this sense, these
challenges are realities for managers, regardless of their
area of operation, in a clear correspondence with what is
accomplished during project management.
According to the Project Management Institute [1],
project management consists of the application of
knowledge, skills and techniques for projects to be
executed effectively and efficiently. Project management
methods are usually divided into traditional and agile
project management methods [3].
Agile project management methods are more
responsive to changes and are more flexible, with Scrum
being very popular [4]. As will be discussed in the present
study, Scrum [5] provides greater team interaction,
making project tracking more dynamic, therefore making
Scrum a versatile alternative for managing organizational
activities outside the context of projects.
This research is characterized by a single case study,
where the aspects used in the management of the work
routines in a department of a public company, with
emphasis on the observation of the practices of Scrum,
were observed. In this way, the objective of the work is to
analyze the aspects of the management of routines in the
company studied from the use of Scrum. The data
collected are from the year 2017 (January to November).
After the above contextualization, this paper aims to
answer: How does Scrum work in the management of
work routines in the studied context?; in the case studied,
was Scrum used with adaptations to the recommended
practices? If so, what were the adjustments?; what is the
influence of using Scrum for the organization of the
routine, in terms of time management, task distribution,
effective delivery, transparency, activity monitoring,
collaboration among team members and continuous
improvement?
In this sense, the data collection for this research was
done through: sending a questionnaire to the manager of
the area; analysis of documents produced by the sector
object of the present case study; and observations in loco.
The questionnaire was structured with open
questions, to allow a wider collection of information
related to the use of Scrum in the area. The questions
were elaborated based on the roles, processes and artifacts
foreseen in Scrum, to delineate the extent of the
application of the concepts in the studied management,
besides the realized adaptations and effects for the
organization of the routine, in addition to the observations
made and the documents analyzed.
In the following section there is a brief presentation
on the Scrum method. In the third section we have the
case study itself: Scrum adaptations in the company under
study, as well as performance indicators after using the
methodology. Finally, the fourth section presents the
conclusions about the results observed using Scrum for
the management of routines.
II. SCRUM
Agile project management methods place, in contrast
to the traditional approach, the emphasis on continuous
planning and flexible scope, making changes throughout
project development more easily manageable and thus
making agile methods attractive in uncertain and changing
environments, by the rapid response capacity conferred
[4]. Among the agile methods that can be cited are Scrum,
Lean Kanban, XP - eXtreme Programming, among others,

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as mentioned in [6], and it is important to point out that
this work will focus on Scrum.
According to [7], Scrum is formed by three main
elements: roles, processes and artifacts. Among the roles,
there are the Scrum Master, the project team and the
Product Owner. Among the processes, there are the
kickoff, the sprint planning meeting, the sprint, the daily
Scrum, and the sprint review meeting. Finally, the
artifacts include the product backlog, sprint backlog and
graphics (burndown charts). Although not cited by [7],
among the processes, there is also a retrospective meeting
[5], [8].
The Scrum Master (SM) is the facilitator, responsible
for disseminating Scrum values and practices, and
removing obstacles during the execution of activities. The
project development team is multifunctional, self-
organized and usually works on the project in a holistic
way. The Product Owner (PO) guides the requirements of
the project and the sequence of deliveries to be made,
giving the team a clear vision of what will be developed
[8]. It is important to note that, according to [5], there is
no relation of authority between any of the three roles.
At the kickoff meeting, a general non-detailed
product backlog is defined, and the main goals of the
project. At the sprint planning meetings, which include
the project team, the SM and the PO, the following
activities are performed: (1) detailing the product backlog
and then determining the sprint goal, the result to be
achieved after iteration; and (2) the definition of the sprint
backlog, ie the list of requirements that will be developed
in the sprint being planned [7].
Second [5] sprints are limited to a maximum duration
of one month. Sprints include sprint planning meetings,
daily meetings, development work, the sprint review
meeting, and the retrospective meeting.
Check-in meetings, called the Daily Scrum, are held
daily, lasting no more than 15 minutes, between the SM
and the Scrum team. During this meeting, each member of
the team informs what has been done since the last
meeting; what will be done until the next daily meeting;
and if there is something impeding the advance of the
work so that the SM can act [9], [10].
The sprint review meeting is held at the end of each
sprint, being a scheduled inspection and adaptation
opportunity of what has been developed. During the
meeting, functionality is discussed between the team, the
SM, the PO, as well as stakeholders, sponsors, clients and
interested members of other teams. After that, a
retrospective meeting is held in which the SM, the team
and the PO discuss the main occurrences in that sprint and
what actions will be taken to correct them as of the next
sprint [8].
For the Scrum artifacts, the product backlog
constitutes the project requirements ranked in a prioritized
list that is managed and maintained by the PO. During the
sprint planning meeting, the team estimates the effort
required to complete each product backlog item and
generates the sprint backlog [10].
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Scrum intentionally emphasizes the work done
through the use of graphics as well as the monitoring of
the sprints which is also carried out through the
Scrumboard, which is a framework of tasks in which the
stories to be performed, written on adhesive papers, are
placed, and whose status (to be done, in progress or
completed) is updated in the daily meetings so that it is
possible to monitor the progress of the planned work [6].
Scrum is characterized by being a framework for
project management. The three main pillars of the Scrum
are transparency, inspection and adaptation [5].
- Transparency seeks to keep aspects of the process
visible to everyone who shares responsibility for results;
- Inspection must be done frequently enough to detect
variations and not disrupt the execution of the work being
developed, inspecting the artifacts and work progress
towards the sprint goal;
- Adaptation occurs when, inspecting one or more aspects
of the delivery under development, deviations are verified
in relation to the acceptable limits, which can generate a
product that will be rejected.
Both Scrum and PDCA (Plan - Do - Check - Act)
cycle are interactive and focus on continuous
improvement [6], taking this into account is that Scrum
has been chosen for the management of the routine jobs of
the department under study. Fig. 1 illustrates the phases of
the PDCA cycle and their correspondence with Scrum
processes.
Fig.1. PDCA Cycle in Scrum
III. CASE STUDY
The context of study is a public company. The
company has about 200 employees. The studied
department has seven employees, one manager, one chief
(intermediate leader) and five analysts. Scrum began to be
used in the area to assist with the need to structure, plan
and distribute the tasks systematically, to reach the
objectives outlined.
Although the management team studied had no prior
knowledge of Scrum, its "easy-to-understand, adaptability
to changes, not having extensive focus on documents, and
being implementation-friendly tools contributed greatly to
the beginning of its use", according the manager of the
area (the manager's speeches were extracted from the
questionnaire applied).
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TABLE 1
COMPARATIVE BETWEEN THE ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY EACH OF THE ROLES IN THE CASE STUDIED AND THE SCRUM

Regarding the roles, processes and artifacts, with the
exception of the kickoff meeting, it was observed the
implementation of such categories with the necessary
adaptations to enable its use in routine management.
In the present research, the most relevant adaptations
to the roles and their respective attributions are related to
the fact that it is a hierarchical structure, different from
what Scrum advocates [6]. This adaptation is due, for
TABLE 2
COMPARISON OF THE PROCESSES IN THE CASE STUDIED AND THE SCRUM
example, to the fact that the PO (Area manager)
participates in the construction of the sprint backlog and
participates in and conducts with the SM the daily
meetings, which, in principle, would be restricted
activities of the development team [5]. Table 1 shows a
comparison between the activities performed by each of
the roles in the case studied and the one recommended in
Scrum.

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In relation to the processes, as shown in Table 2, the
most relevant adaptations to what Scrum advocates [5] are
as follows: the fact that sprints cover general activities,
not necessarily linked and therefore not related to a
specific objective, as would happen during a project; the
possibility of inserting extra activities during the sprints;
the implementation of an interval between sprints, during
which the review, retrospective and planning meetings of
TABLE 3
COMPARISON OF ARTIFACTS IN THE CASE STUDIED AND IN SCRUM
the new sprint are held; the holding of review meetings
with the PO, SM, and only the people who developed and
checked the story activities, not the whole team, and the
fact that not all the stories pass through the PO screen; the
fact that during the retrospective meetings a formal
process of recording lessons learned and agreed
improvements were not carried out.

Regarding the artifacts: the product backlog of the
studied management does not properly constitute a list of
requirements [7], but in a global survey of the activities to
be carried out, organized in a priority scale; the sprint
backlog is built with the participation of the PO and SM
and does not contemplate the detail needed to concretize
the story, contrary to what was proposed by [5], besides
the fact that the PO and the SM participate in the
distribution of tasks, rather than the team itself
accomplishing this definition [11]; as for the graphs, the
most relevant adaptation is the use of a burn-up graph to
measure inserted extra activities. The extra activities,
because of their urgency, are inserted in the sprint
backlog, as they can not wait for the end of the cycle to be
inserted in the planning of the next sprint. Table 3 shows
a comparison between the artifacts in the case studied and
the one recommended in Scrum.
The influence of the use of Scrum in the organization
of the routine, in terms of time management, task
distribution, effective delivery, transparency, activity
monitoring, collaboration among team members and
continuous improvement, was verified through the
analysis of usage indicators of the Scrum and evaluated
the organization of the routine in the sector for the aspects
in question, using the management data, the questionnaire
applied to the manager and the observations made.

TABLE 4
TABLE OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS EVALUATED IN THE CASE STUDY

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The department's manager established the goals
previously and the indicators were calculated as described
in the table 4. It indicate the department’s effort to
measure its performance through Scrum practices, as a
result of its effective implementation. The data show that,
in terms of the punctuality of the meetings, there was
78.57% compliance until Sprint nº 15 of 2017, while
adherence to planning was 53.33%. Regarding this last
result, we observed the influence of the insertion of
unplanned activities during the sprint.
As of Sprint nº 11, management began to measure the
average number of people in the sprint and points scored
per person, which will also allow better monitoring of
resources throughout the cycles and evaluation of the
correlation between the availability of personnel and
scores achieved. In the case study of [12], the speed
fluctuations in sprints were attributed to the different
levels of complexity of the increments to be implemented.
The results of the indicators discussed reflect the need
for the factors that influence adherence to planning and
speed of sprints, such as the insertion of non-scheduled
activities and the nature of them.
Regarding the effectiveness of the deliveries, an
important evolution was noticed by the manager, which is
probably related to the communication, the inspection and
the constant feedback provided by the use of Scrum,
allowing each employee to have a better understanding of
their performance [13].
IV. CONCLUSION
The present work aimed to analyze the use of the
agile project management method of Scrum for the
management of work routines in the management of a
public company. In this context, it was possible to verify
the adaptation of Scrum concepts to admit their use in a
functional organizational structure, mainly to attend to
priority demands arising in the organizational everyday.
In the case studied, it was verified that the use of
Scrum, although with the observed adaptations, allowed:
- Planning of the work to be carried out by the team.
- Transparency in the evolution of work, with the
visualization and discussion of the advances of deliveries
over time.
- Work fluency, systematization of activities,
dimensioning of effort to perform tasks, planning of
activities to be developed at each sprint and meetings.
- Constant communication among team members, which
encourages integration and collaboration in the sector.
- Clear measurement of what was produced by the team.
- Higher quality in deliveries, through the understanding
of requirements, monitoring and constant feedback.
- Improvement of practices, such as the insertion of
Scrum indicators.
Finally, although the findings here are characteristic
of the case studied, it can be seen that Scrum is an
interesting alternative for the application in different
contexts, considering its three fundamental pillars,
namely, transparency, inspection and adaptation. In
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addition, such findings may also support subsequent
studies related to the management of work routines and
the use of Scrum precepts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by CAPES (Coordination
for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel).
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