Scrum is unique because it introduced the idea of empirical process control.

That is, Scrum uses the real-world progress of a project not a best guess or uninformed forecast to plan and schedule releases. In Scrum, projects are divided into succinct work cadences, known as sprints, which are typically one week, two weeks, or three weeks in duration. At the end of each sprint, stakeholders and team members meet to assess the progress of a project and plan its next steps. This allows a projects direction to be adjusted or reoriented based on completed work, not speculation or predictions.

Scrum is a process skeleton that contains sets of practices and predefined roles. The main roles in Scrum are[7]:
1. the ScrumMaster, who maintains the processes (typically in lieu of a project manager) 2. the Product Owner, who represents the stakeholders and the business 3. the Team, a cross-functional group who do the actual analysis, design, implementation,

testing, etc.

[edit] Sprint
A sprint is the basic unit of development in Scrum. Sprints tend to last between one week and one month,[6] and are a "timeboxed" (i.e. restricted to a specific duration) effort of a constant length.[8]

The Scrum methodology is iterate (the product is produced during the small cycles called iterations), incremental (the functionality of the product increase during each iteration by adding new properties) and use its own terminology for working people and some procedural steps. Scrum methodology have many elements but none of them is random and unnecessary. There is a project team consisted of the owner of the product , ScrumMaster and Scrum team. Each one have different task to perform. The entire Scrum process is also divided. There are following phases: pregame, game and postgame. The structure of the Scrum methodology is very complex but not complicated! What is the difference between agile methodology and other, traditional methodologies?
Agile methodology emphasizes the communication ,collaboration ,rapid exchange of information , teamwork and what is very important the functioning software and flexibility(adaptability to the changing development factors and external environment). Software development process is

sometimes very unpredictable and might be complex. If all developers worked communicated and collaborated together, it will be easier to create better software. Because of that the agile methodology is the best solution for projects with rapidly changing, hard and emergent requirements. While the agile methodology is focused on people the traditional methodology is focused on processes , sequence of processes and useful tools. It is flexible but only in the beginning of the project and doesnt handle appropriate with changing environmental needs and requirements after the start.

What is AGILE
Agile methodology is a conceptual framework where software is devloped in iterations. Each iterations has Requirement analysis, planning, design, coding, testing and documentation. Characteristics : - Many builds are delivered in the iteration process - Accepts change of requirement at any stage - Requires close communication between business, Development and Testing people - Reduced risk and time to devlop - Less documentation work compared to other methodologies - Requires continious testing Agile is software development methodology. It is very effective where Client frequently changes his requirement. Since it has more iteration so you can assure a solution that meets clients requirement. More than one build deployement for a project. It involves more client interection and testing effort. There are two methods by which this methodology can be implemented:1- Scrum 2- Extreme Progamming

Scrum: Each iteration would called a scrum which can be a 12 Months.In Scrum Client prioritise his requirements what he want first. If developer did not meets all the requirement which was being fixed for a perticular scrum than rest of the development part would be transferred to the next scrum (would be delievered in the next build), means developer cann't increase time decided for a scrum. Its fixed. Extreme Programming (XP): here iteration period would be less then in scrum , which is being 2-4 weeks. Here developer prioritise what to do first on the basis of client requirement. This duration which was being fixed for a iteration, can be increase if the some development part is still pending. The build would deployed with having all the client needs. Thus iteration period is not fixed here it can be increase. but iteration should meets all the client's requirement in this build. More attension is required for testing in XP.

RUP Vs. AGILE

UP is iterative, it follows the general phases of inception, elaboration, construction, and transition in a more or less linear fashion. As the development proceeds less time is spent on requirements and analysis, and more time is spent on construction, testing, and transition. Agile processes on the other hand, spend time on each activity in each iteration. During each iteration (usually 2-4 weeks) a little of all steps (requirements, analysis, design, development, test, etc.) are undertaken. The goal is to have stable software which could be shipped at the end of each iteration. At the beginning of each iteration, all stakeholders meet to reorganise requirements and their priorities, while at the end of the iteration, working software is demonstrated to the stakeholders. This ensures that customer value is being added at all times, and that progress is being made on what matters, working software.

UP and its relative the Rational Unified Process (RUP) are quite comprehensive, and were designed to be modified to suit the project being developed. This adds another layer of complexity to the development effort, as the process has first to be modified before being implemented. While this allows for the flexibility to use UP on any project, it requires teams to have access to UP experts to ensure that the process is being defined and used properly. Agile on the other hand tends to be used for small to medium sized projects involving teams up to 10 closely knit developers. Once teams become bigger than this, agile methodologies begin to fail, as they dont scale to large teams, or teams spread across geographies.