Scrum Framework History

The historic timeline of Scrum Framework. From it’s origin in 1986 to current developments till 2017.

1986: Dr. Takeuchi and Dr. Nonaka introduced the term “Scrum” in the article The New New Product Development Game published in the Harvard Business Review. They explained that projects using small, cross-functional teams historically produce the best results. They related these high-performance teams to “Scrum” formations in Rugby – a tight formation of forwards who bind together in specific positions when a scrumdown is called.

1993: Scrum for software development was introduced by Jeff Sutherland at Easel Corporation using the study by Takeuchi and Nonaka (1986) as a basis, adopting their analogy as the name of the process as a whole for software development.

1995: Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland formalized the “Scrum” process for the worldwide software industry in the first published paper on Scrum at OOPSLA. Papers identified

2001: Jeff and Ken were amongst the 17 software development evangelists creating the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Following the Agile Manifesto, the Agile Alliance was founded with Ken Schwaber being its first chairman. Inspired by Kent Beck, Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle authored the first book on Scrum “Agile Software Development with Scrum”.

2002: Ken Schwaber founded the Scrum Alliance with Mike Cohn and Esther Derby. Ken chaired the organization. In the years to follow the highly successful Certified ScrumMaster programs and its derivatives were created and launched.

2006: Jeff Sutherland created his own company, Scrum.inc. He continues to offer and teach the Certified Scrum courses – Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) through Scrum Alliance.

2009: Ken left the Scrum Alliance and founded Scrum.org to further improve the quality and effectiveness of Scrum, mainly through the Professional Scrum series.

2010 – 2017: The first Scrum Guide was published. Jeff and Ken established the body of knowledge of Scrum which received global acclaim. Its incremental updates were made in 2011, 2013, 2016, and 2017.

Ever since its first publication in 1995 up to now, Scrum has been adopted by a vast amount of software development companies around the world. It is the most applied framework for agile software development. More than 1000 books have been published on Scrum and relevant topics.

The framework, however, has also been successfully applied in other domains, e.g. manufacturing, operations, education, marketing, finance, accounting, churches, etc.

With their continued work at their respective companies, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland relentlessly keep setting the vision for success with Scrum.