A redditor asked the following question:

Question#

Can someone explain something to me

Are iterations and sprints part of agile dev or scrum, and whether i should think of agile more as of a concept and it does not have iterations and sprints

My answer#

For me, iterations and sprints are synonymous. You can be agile with or without them.

Another redditor wrote a comment which was not exacty accurate#

Agile is more of an umbrella term for all software development/productthat’s more agile than let’s say waterfall. Scrum is a Project Management Framework which is agile—scrum has activities like scrum planning, backlog refinement, etc. Agile meaning you’re getting quick feedback loops called iterations. Agile has a lot of similar frameworks to Scrum that are popular like Kanban. Many times agile and scrum are used interchangeably but to me scrum is a specific use of agile.

I had to respond to that#

Scrum is not a project management framework. The purpose of Scrum is to help solve complex problems in an adaptive way. It could be used to build products, but in my opinion it’s at odds with project management, because by the definition of Scrum, you have to adapt your plan, your way of working and your schedule in every iteration. Scrum won’t help you deliver the project on time and on budget, but it might help you build a good product that meets the customer’s needs.

Another person said that iterations are the core of agile#

Sprints / iterations are in the core of Agile practices.

  • Scrum requires Sprints to work, see : https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html#the-sprint
  • Agile manifesto twelve principles state : “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.”, and “Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.”

I don’t think it’s right#

Sorry, but iterations are not in the core of agile. You can be perfectly agile without them.

Also, the sprint in Scrum is not a delivery cadence. It’s a discovery cadence. According to the Agile Manifesto and current good practices, you should be ready to release your software a few times a day (see Continuous Delivery or Trunk-based development). So you need technical excellence, automated tests that you trust, a highly motivated team that wants to do a good job, and eXtreme Programming practices or something similar.