What Is Scrum? (An Agile Cartoon)

What is Scrum? This brief video will introduce you to the general concepts of Scrum and how Agile teams use Scrum to deliver software efficiently. For a free book, continue below....
I've published a book called "Starting Agile" that is designed to help you start your team's Agile journey outright. You can buy a copy from Amazon, but I'm giving free copies away to my subscribers from KZbin. You can signup for a copy at this link:
www.xeric.net/#starting-agile

[@andreaknight-financial8001]

This was so great. I spent hours sitting through boring lectures without cartoons and this made it so much easier to compartmentalize and digest. Thanks!

[@farhadhabibullah548]

Didn't understand a thing in my 3 hours class, but you just made everything crystal in few minutes. you are a legend! thank you so much for the great work you r doing

[@ThePersonalDevelopme]

Me too! He just explained everything in 8 minutes that I learned in 2 classes

[@ahmedsaid-zp6uj]

You are such an amazing simplifier and teacher, Mark🌹

[@harshal13]

Mark, Amazing Videos!! The topics are presented so well in just right words, music and animation. Small duration videos keep me focussed and still so informative. Great job and can't thank you enough! Also , thanks very much for the free book - much appreciate it!

[@d11i37n31]

I appreciated just how brief and thorough you were. In particular using the example of comparing scrum with rugby as well as explaining why the terms sprint and iteration are interchangeable. Thank you,

[@trustjamin3023]

Hey Mark, just discovered you today and I just wanted to thank you for the way you explain things so simple and clear. Subscribed already!

[@ourloveislovely]

Your videos make learning so easy and natural- love them!

[@frotes]

Appreciate your videos, nice and concise and the cartoon style helps with sharing it. Would like to see you cover some more specific agile techniques and pros/cons

[@incialemdaroglu6964]

Mark ,I can not thank you enough for the fun and clear information, Subscribed already!

[@delilahfowlkes9679]

Thank you so much ! I have been looking for a clear and simple video as I am barking upon my new role as a Scrum Master, and your videos are the best. Thank you!

[@hassanafzal860]

Best demonstration Mark. Now I am fully clear. First I saw your agile video and now Scrum video. Both are well discussed. My huge confusion is gone and now I can easily differentiate them. Thank you.

[@amythai4435]

I plan on using your videos as discussion starters in our IT learning series. Love how your videos always provide different analogies such as the music and sports, it makes it easier to relate to the topic at hand. I love dynamic content that actually keeps the learner in mind. Less is more by making it simple, short, and entertaining. You're a great educator!

[@MarkShead]

Thanks. Glad to hear you like them. I've got some new videos coming in 2023 where we make a video about each principle, so be watching for those. I'd love to hear what your team thinks of the videos!

[@openyard]

Nice presentation, the content was narratored concisely and clearly. The animation is of high quality and spot on with the context.

[@357JohnM]

I'm now subscribed. Signed up and got your book (PDF). Well done mate.

[@omgha142]

Mark, appreciate your time and work on explaining what SCRUM is. It was very insightful and explained in simple terms. I also enjoyed your AGILE video and learned about the values and principles of software development based on the agreed manifesto. Keep up the good work.

[@MarkShead]

Thanks! Glad to hear it is useful.

[@prashanthb17]

Love your channel mark, this is great work. Appreciate the effort.

[@rachelchristina3710]

Mark, You made my the Complex to understand it in a Simpler form.

[@mradorableboi]

The scrum loops visual is really cool. Sums it up in a few minutes!

[@arshammostaani3114]

That was an amazingly succinct presentation of the scrum.

[@NorLastrinaHamid]

Hey Mark, just discovered you today and wanted to thank you for all these succinct videos that gives a great overview and explanation of things!

[@MarkShead]

Awesome, thank you!

[@rebeccagrundhoefer1547]

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this video and several others I watched of yours. Thank you!

[@MarkShead]

So glad to hear it's useful.

[@varun9173]

Simple and Clear , ,thanks for the good content Mark.

[@user-zu1ky6sr7t]

I can see the value of Agile but scrum is interesting. With some scrum masters, the team spend a lot of time following the rituals rather than doing the actual work. Some stake holders get really annoyed with the meetings upon meetings but they have to attend to be seen as embracing the agile way! We have a joke: Confucius says "Talking doesn't get the rice cooked!" There is a point with which the amount of time spent on figuring out ways to improve things in the past far outweighs the benefits of the returned improvements. Sort of like a dog chasing its tail. I am only sharing this because of some scrum masters who are so rigids in their rituals that the process becomes bogged down in the mechanics of getting things done, which contradicts what being agile is all about! Great video, by the way, and thank you very much!

[@saracosta4898]

The best video I watched explaining scrum so far.

[@traceydonnelly494]

Love this, so easy to use and very understandable for those not familiar with SCRUM. I like the fact that it is still visually office based even though we are mostly working for home, makes me feel nostalgic ;-)

[@MarkShead]

Glad it was helpful!

[@thierryhoornaert9950]

Nice video! You might have mentioned the 5 values: Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage. Being a cartoon, it might have been useful to point out the accountability and responsibility of each role in a way that would be remembered for good.

[@oluwoleodewale7311]

Good and clear definition of terms and concepts.

[@koenhouse]

I read my book, no clue. Googled scrum at various sites, still no clue. Watching your clip = a light bulb goes off in my head. Thank you, Mark!

[@MarkShead]

I'm so glad it was helpful and thank you for taking the time to comment. So what do you think of Scrum?

[@morganj1060]

Thank you for ALL of your videos. They help me a lot.

[@mehradkhan4616]

it was great! thank you so much. if you had explained more about the connection between every increment and sprints, it would have been better.

[@queenor6341]

This is it!!!!!! the best video ever...Thank you Dear Mark

[@LHCB6]

Easy to understand. The animations are helpful and appreciated.

[@markux1983]

Excellent as always!!!

[@selmb2073]

Love your videos! Will you be doing any videos explaining the difference between scrum and kanban and waterfall?

[@patriciamukami2048]

Very well illustrated

[@AnonymousOneMusic1988]

Dude awesome video mark thank you for the breakdown!!

[@intentionallynala]

so very helpful, I'm new to this and after watching the video, I feel like it all makes sense now .

[@margiettetillman-iqsw7523]

Great presentation.

[@wisdomyawduse-anthony1052]

this is a very good video,sooo informative.keep them coming.... Great Stuff Buddy

[@strategicproject434]

Great video! Very well explained

[@veronicaolivares9150]

You are great!

[@dirghagupta210]

I really like your videos and the way things are made understood...Keep it up Sir

[@majidkhan-pg4xp]

Thanks Mark for explaining in simple way.. Best wishes for creating new VDOs.

[@shakti-man741]

Thank you Mark!

[@tung-thanhnguyen8755]

Extremely useful. Thanks.

[@NavaneethaKrishnanA]

Excellent explanation

[@mishaanderson825]

Fantastic explanation as a new agile coach

[@rbelatamas]

beautiful video ❤

[@jidejosef7891]

Quite informative Really appreciated

[@leonardjohnny67]

great stuff Mark

[@georginaguzman9722]

I love your videos. They really help me!!!

[@visualpmpacademy2230]

Great job. Thank you

[@melissarosebeauty]

You are scrumming through our comments. Love it😁

[@alexshi6752]

Thanks. This video was very helpful to understand Scrum.

[@giamor2944]

Great presentation. Ez to understand

[@gingerkiwidev]

Thanks Mark! I really appreciate the human generated captions. My grad diploma lectures don't have captions, so I've been using alternative sources. (I'm a first wave covid long hauler with tinnitus.)

[@MarkShead]

Glad it was helpful!

[@iamshahin]

Thankyou Mark This was so helpful

[@flyingsalmon]

Thank you Mark. Great high-level. In your future videos, could you please touch on: a) Roles (PO, PM, SM, Dev Team) and b) Scenarios (e.g. scope creep...who handles it? SM? PO? DevTeam cannot deliver the originally planned increment...what are the right options? etc...something along the lines of SM certification type of questions. Many thanks for your work.

[@MarkShead]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions!

[@mojtabasetoodeh2869]

Thank you Mark, it was so beneficial for me.

[@swatcreativeworks6791]

Awesome 🌟

[@TruthSeeker12345]

Well done 😊

[@mrabidene]

Amazing video... thanks Mark, my question, is Increment the same as Value in this video?

[@taykratzer]

Great stuff

[@130675dana]

you are a genius, man))))

[@RightfullySO597]

Very effective and educational

[@julietniega4161]

Thanks..big help in my class

[@shahzadawahed2579]

Thanks sir you make my day ❤️

[@11pnevill]

Mark - I can't offer improvements because frankly, your videos are one of the top videos available today regarding the topics you touch on. I would love to know what carton/animation software you use. I hope to do some similar but not on the same topics, obviously!

[@MarkShead]

We use Vyond to make the videos. I'll send you some more info on LinkedIn.

[@Maen.Abujaber]

nice, keep it up

[@mazharkhan2896]

Honestly....thank you. I subscribed as well

[@j2tube1]

Great video. I like the cartoons..

[@MarkShead]

Thank you 🤗

[@iyshak5373]

Do you use toonly? Great video, what software did you use?

[@HussainAhmed-bl1ku]

Very clear

[@nazrinhummatova8043]

Thanks soo muchh

[@leeamraa]

very good!

[@MarkShead]

Thanks! And thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

[@when_life_gives_you_limes]

Love the animations

[@MarkShead]

Thanks! Are there any other topics you'd like to see covered?

[@varunmaheshwari1353]

How have you developed this awesome video ? Can you share the details.

[@MarkShead]

Varun - These videos are done with Vyond.

[@shamsideenkazeem269]

Great job, i gave it to you

[@olivialinden8699]

very good

[@simoneriksson5585]

Great video :) Feedback: Your microphone (or my headset) could be better.

[@jahbeth-]

i want to thank you all the videos you made , it's help me a lot . but to be honest i have been stilling i couldn't get the hole idea of it . because these days preparing for PMP , so that why i'm still need time to understand all hole idea of it

[@MarkShead]

Glad they are helpful. How is your PMP preparation going?

[@pm71241]

Could you reflect on the situation where the output from the reflection on how to become more efficient is: "less scrum" ?

[@MarkShead]

Funny you should mention that. I was working with a team a few weeks ago that basically said the same thing. Personally I prefer Kanban to Scrum, but that isn't because Scrum is bad. It is just what I see teams typically evolve to when they're really focused on becoming more efficient and effective. I would really ask the team what they feel they're getting value out of and what they don't. For example if they aren't paying attention in the daily face-to-face meetings they probably aren't getting much value out of it. If they aren't paying attention because the meetings go on too long, maybe it's an opportunity to change up the way you're doing them so they're more focused. For example instead of going around the room and asking three questions, You might work through the board and just have everybody speak to the state of each story. The team I was working with decided that the board was actually hampering them from having real conversations around the state of all the work. So they decided to forgo showing the board on the screen and just talk through what was happening and make sure that the different pairs of programmers knew what was going on in every other group. They still bring the board up from time to time, but it was a good example of a team adapting to try to make the meeting more valuable.

[@pm71241]

@@MarkShead It's also a good example of what's wrong with scrum - although only a tiny little one of many. IMNSHO there's nothing agile about scrum. - but you can of course start not doing it and instead do as self-organizing technicians would naturally do to make it more agile. There's nothing wrong with having an issue-tracker or having a special subset of it where you have tasks you focus on. The Open Source community has been doing projects like that for ages. But all the ceremonies and formalism where you can only discuss and share thoughts on the issues in a superficial manner simply forgets one of the most important parts of actually being agile: "technical excellence". ... and I think many of the original signers of the agile manifesto would agree with me.

[@sabergad9265]

what the difference between sprint meeting and sprint planning meeting ?

[@selmb2073]

Can you do a video of scrum vs kanban? 😊

[@brabanjanasathjendran7937]

Can you make videos explaining the PMBOK guide please?

[@MarkShead]

I'm probably not the most knowledgable person about PMI topics beyond some training I did with them two decades ago. Sorry. :(

[@giamor2944]

Mark. What would you suggest I do on my first day with my team?

[@MarkShead]

Do your best to make sure everyone is using the same definition of success. If working code that the users can do something with is success, then make sure you don't have a few team member who think that success means producing many lines of code.

[@peacelover1666]

Hi Mark Nice videos. Wondering that if you can put sequence of all of your videos so that it's easy to know for beginners which video to watch first and which video to watch next something like What Is Agile? Video # 01 What is Scrum? Video # 02 What is Agile Methodology? Video # 03 so on... Appreciate in advance. Thanks

[@MarkShead]

This is probably a reasonable sequence to start with: kzbin.info/aero/PLBUu5aGDLKnbeEx8U-5r436bw6p9wv1rS

[@peacelover1666]

@@MarkShead Thanks

[@kirstencomcast6393]

Is this training based on the Scrum Guide Nov 2020?

[@MarkShead]

It is pretty high level so I don't think you'll find anything that really aligns it with any particular version of the Scrum guide.

[@artemty7]

Really useful videos that you make. Thanks a lot! But there's one little thing: I found those sounds at 1:01, 1:14, 5:37 a bit annoying

[@MarkShead]

Noted! Thanks for the feedback.

[@jokleox]

I liked those sounds they made me really pay attention to the bulleted points, so I actually recalled the info better! Different learners ! Great videos !!

[@sabergad9265]

nice

[@user-vw2jq8jb3t]

Hi Mark, your videos are very good and simple for understanding, but please, could you talk a little bit slolier, cause some of your audience might be not English native speakers, so I am. Thank you.

[@MarkShead]

Thanks for your feedback. I actually had a bunch of people complain I was going too slow early on. :) If it is too fast, You Tube will let you slow it down in the settings under the gear menu.

[@trebledc]

🤔 So scrum is shorter version of waterfall method to produce the product immediately to be scrutinized until it is made perfect then repeat.

[@KilgoreTroutAsf]

So how does the team know which objectives are achievable within 2-4 weeks? Writing software is not like plowing a field. There are too many unkowns before starting the task. Not to mention bugs, miscommunication between team members, etc.

[@MarkShead]

Very good point. I find teams usually do better by focusing on the cycle time of each story because this pushes them to deliver the smallest thing possible. The very first one might indeed take more than 2 weeks, but most teams can start delivering all the way through in 2 to 4 days if they have the support they need. Once you start delivering these very small increments, you'll probably have a better idea of how many can be done in 2 weeks. Not because you are particularly accurate on any individual item, but because the ones that go faster and the ones that go slower will somewhat average out. However, and this is where I probably differ from hard core scrum users, once you start really focusing on cycle time the value of trying to figure out how much you can do in 2 weeks goes down. You might want to still demo every 2 weeks, or do a retrospective every 2 weeks, but if every days is spent focused on finishing the next small piece of work you'll likely move beyond the value of trying to plan how much you can fit into a sprint.

[@fernandohood5542]

IN the end is all about common sense and managing.

[@novak6882]

if i am correct you forget to mention user story

[@Lara.O.]

Really good video, poor sports analogy really threw me off.

[@MarkShead]

The name Scrum comes from Rugby so it isn't my analogy. It is literally why it is called Scrum--because that is what the daily meeting was named after. But I do agree it is a bit weird. Thanks for commenting.

[@Lara.O.]

@@MarkShead I really appreciate your video as it helps me to understand scrum better, which appears to be part of a project management process.

[@agingoff8712]

🗽

[@prashanthb17]

I just have one suggestion, Please make the video more technical. I am sure the daily guy is not interested on scrum. This video was more for people who have no clue of SDLC.

[@mariusvasileingeaua9692]

This is why all software developed nowadays sucks and it is buggy.

[@pbetftdi]

What is scrum? The stupidest possible way to run software development.