Science Scrum: Managing a research group the Agile way

Session Type: Experience Report
Submitters: Michael Podvinec and Joseph Pelrine

Intended Audience: Scientists-turned-software developers, Scientists, anybody interested in experiences from applying Scrum in an unusual context. No specific prerequisities are required from the audience.

Session format: Presentation, ideal duration 45 minutes + questions.

Abstract:

Scrum introductory courses regularly emphasize that Scrum is a methodology that transcends software development and can be applied to any project wishing to achieve goals in a background of complex interdependencies and rapidly changing requirements. Despite this, accounts of successful use of Scrum outside the software development world are few and far between.

We have coached a university bioinformatics research group and introduced them to Scrum. In this session, we will share some of the insights gained in mapping Scrum from one world to another: From commercial software development to academic software development on the one hand, and from software development to scientific research in bioinformatics on the other hand.

How can we map concepts like “increments of potentially executable functionality” to the science world, where the game is about publishing original ideas first, not shipping software? How can we bridge between the “one team, one product” ethos and the egocentric world of PhD students? How can we keep the spirit of scrum while adapting it to the requirements of biology research?

In this session, we will present how we managed to get an important scientific software project shipped within a schedule of six weeks and how we extended the adoption of Scrum not only for the development of scientific services, but also for pushing the envelope of science itself.

We will discuss the peculiarities and obstacles of the academic environment, and outline the transition (and necessary adaptations) to using Scrum in research, along with some surprise findings of similarities and discrepancies between the two worlds.