Scrum: It's not for small projects any more ...

Microsoft Lauds 'Scrum' for Software Development Projects
David K. Taft
eWeek, 11 Nov 2005

When Microsoft launched its long-awaited database and tools products last week, the company acknowledged it would have to act faster to revise its products faster as customer needs grow.

One way Microsoft's development teams intend to deliver on this is through the use of agile development methodologies, such as extreme programming and Scrum, company officials said.

Scrum is an agile method for management of software development projects.

David Treadwell, corporate vice president of the .Net Developer Platform group at Microsoft, said that while Microsoft welcomes the use of methodologies like Scrum, "we're not mandating them, but we're encouraging them. So Scrum is one process—the idea that teams meet once a day for half an hour, figure out what they're going to do then go off and do their work very quickly.

"The other is extreme programming—the concept where you might have two people working on a given piece of code and the idea is that two minds are better than one. Because you can find problems faster."

Treadwell said many teams within Microsoft rely on Scrum as a way to turn out quality software on time and in tune with user requirements.