Scrum Competitive Advantage: Benefits Beyond Productivity

Alex Brown

September 25, 2012

Most companies are familiar with and benefit from using Scrum to improve their employees’ productivity, but that’s really just one of the many competitive advantages it can bring to the table.

“There are many levers that Scrum pulls, all simultaneously,” explains Alex Brown, COO of Scrum Inc., in this short video. “That’s part of the power of the framework.”

Brown lists four key benefits that result from successful Scrum adoption, including:

  • Improved efficiency: Scrum helps teams get to output faster.
  • A stronger customer-centric product and focus: With its emphasis on incremental development incorporating customer feedback, Scrum can often lead to improvements in customer satisfaction.
  • Continuous improvement: The goal of Scrum is constant refinement, and the more accomplished teams become in implementing it, the faster they are able to get products to market.
  • Empowering the team: By promising to unleash individuals’ potential Scrum can be both a recruiting and talent retention advantage, as well.


Partner

<strong>Alex Brown</strong> is a partner at <a href="http://reconstrategy.com/">Recon Strategy</a>. Prior to this role, he was the Chief Operating Officer of Scrum Inc., a firm specializing in agile strategy and rapid new product innovation. Before that Alex spent 6 years at BCG, where he was a leader in the healthcare and consumer strategy practice areas. His engagements included re-envisioning high performance network design for a major national PBM; and designing a "nudge unit" leveraging consumer psychology to improve patient outcomes for a leading retail pharmacy. Prior to BCG, Alex led demand forecasting of complex transportation networks for major public investments. Alex graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. and Masters in Engineering, and earned an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.