INTO THE SCRUM
Scrum has long been a popular agile approach in the software
project world. Now, as organizations continue to adopt iterative techniques, it’s slowly making its way into other sectors.
By Ben Schaefer
WHERE IT’S AT
59%
of ScrumMasters
are certified.
The average Scrum team:
29%
of Scrum users
work in IT.
12%
work in
finance.
Uses Scrum artifacts, including
product backlogs, sprint backlogs
and burn-down charts (90%).
Conducts sprint
planning before
each sprint (83%).
Holds a team
meeting each
day (81%).
Follows two-week
sprints (60% of
respondents).
Has seven
members.
THE LATEST
STATISTICS, SURVEYS
AND STUDIES
ing—finding the best lighting system, for instance,
by taking images with various lights. “We built
progressively on our test data for prototype
subsystems before building the full prototype
system,” says Jonathan Holmes, senior research
engineer, Georgia Tech Research Institute,
Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Now that the prototype shows the system can
extend road life spans and save public money, the
Roadbot team is looking for potential partners on
the next phase: expanding the Roadbot, which currently is only 1 foot (0.3 meter) wide, to handle a
road’s full width.
Not every cost-saving measure requires invent-
ing an entirely new technology; sometimes, the
solution comes from applying existing systems in
new ways. When the Michigan
Department of Transporta-
tion had less than one year to
complete its 96Fix project, a
US$153 million initiative to
repair 7 miles ( 11 kilometers)
of Interstate 96, it turned to
an e-construction option that
had worked on smaller efforts.
Digitizing—rather than printing
and mailing—traditionally paper
processes such as contractors’
bids, project drawings and
payroll certifications required
of federal projects saved valuable time on a project affecting
140,000 motorists a day.
“It was a new technology for
this project, but one that had
been piloted a few times on
smaller projects,” says Gerard
Pawloski, metro region con-
Southfield, Michigan, USA. “Closing the freeway
has user costs for the public and for businesses in
the area, so shortening the time of construction is
a huge benefit.”
Whether they’re inventing entire systems or
finding new ways to use existing technology, proj-
ect teams continue to search for new ways to shore
up U.S. infrastructure. —Novid Parsi
“Closing the
freeway has
user costs
for the public
and for
businesses in
the area, so
shortening
the time of
construction
is a huge
benefit.”
—Gerard Pawloski,
Michigan Department of
Transportation, Southfield,
Michigan, USA
