New Year’s reSOLUTIONS: Scrum

How new processes will change the way a team works in 2015

By Tony DiCostanzo

If you’re anything like me, your New Year’s resolutions habitually include getting more exercise and staying fit. For 2015, however, I’m stretching out and warming up to a new kind of agility—and it doesn’t involve a gym bag. It’s Scrum.

A dramatic departure from traditional waterfall management, Scrum is an agile process that focuses on open communication and a more manageable “as-you-go” approach to getting your project completed. I always appreciate a solid master plan, but Scrum narrows and focuses my action items to more digestible, “doable” pieces: components that transform into accomplishments at every beat.

With a major Web development endeavor underway for us in 2015, I’m eager to launch this “real-world progress” approach in tackling project management. In fact, we’ve already started incorporating Scrum in our early planning stages. Its emphasis on communication and collaboration has already benefited our team—a welcomed change from the more rigid waterfall paradigm where these attributes tend to suffer.

Scrum’s flexibility and adaptability in our project environment is already working for us, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store when we officially unroll this new management style companywide. Our regular Scrum meetings will focus on recent and upcoming accomplishments, giving our team an understanding of what’s been checked off the list and what still needs work. Far from the traditional status meeting format, these productive powwows will comprise progress assessment and next-step planning based on completed work as opposed to predictions and speculation.

This new methodology will change the way we manage projects, and ultimately introduce more business success for everyone. I can’t think of a better win-win situation to introduce in the coming year for my company, employees, clients and projects.

Tony DiCostanzo is President and Founder of BookPal, an e-commerce company that that sells books to corporations, school districts, nonprofits and government agencies. DiCostanzo has led BookPal’s growth from a start-up to a three-time Inc. 500|5000 honoree and was recognized by OC Metro magazine as one of Orange County’s “Top 40 Under 40.” For more information, visit www.book-pal.com.