What is this team looking at so intensely?  They are cheering on their rugby team at North Georgia College and State University during a scrum.  This was my first live experience at a rugby game as I watched my nephew participate last Saturday.  The regular rugby play was interrupted; one method to restart play is with a scrum.  Eight members of each team form a three-row pack – and go head-to-head with the opposing team’s pack.  Possession of the ball results as the teams crouch, touch, and engage to push the other team back from the ball, which is thrown into the middle of the melee.  Play resumes as this all-out effort results in ownership of the ball once the “hooker” has captured the ball with his feet for his team.

It is this same concept, a multi-person all-out effort to deliver results, that led early Agile methodology practitioners to coin the name Scrum for a particular approach in Agile project management.  A Scrum team is a cross-functional team working jointly in a series of “sprints” to deliver results with high value.

As you prepare to obtain the PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practioner) certification, be sure to learn about the details of Scrum methodology as one such Agile approach.

Wow!  I hope my next Scrum sprint is not as physical as the last scrum that I observed Saturday!