How is Adaptive Software Development (ASD) different from Scrum? Part 2

Read the First Part (Adaptive Software Development being different from Scrum - Part 1)

For understanding the further differences between the two, it is important that we know what Agile Development is. The Agile manifest defines the agile methodology. There are 7 agile methodologies; namely XP, Crystal orange, Scrum, Adaptive Software Development, DSDM, Pragmatic programming and Feature – driven development. All these methods differ in their mechanisms and the parameters they take. All these methods have a different agile life cycle. For ASD, it depends on what techniques we are going to use. Generally speaking it doesn’t have a life cycle of its own. In contrast to this, scrum has an abstract lifecycle which packs certain activities in to its schedule.

However here we discuss differences based up on a lifecycle having some general phases.
- Project initiation: This step includes justification of the project and determining the requirements.
- Planning: Laying out an elaborate plan for development and leaving some gap for contingency actions. Scrum doesn’t have choice for including optional phases. It must work within predefined options, whereas the adaptive software development can have many options because it does not limits itself to few techniques.
- Elaboration of requirements: This stage is optional. The requirements are explained in great detail. Scrum does not implement this stage separately, but, it may be done in Adaptive Software development. Since the requirements are still in high level, they need to be broken down in to simpler specifications. The requirements are collated in to requirements document after classification. This document also contains use cases apart from the requirements.
- Architecture: Both scrum and ASD are based on agile principle of, design today and refactor tomorrow. Software developed using ASD can be modified to suit the changing environment just by adjusting their software capabilities and leaving the hardware unchanged. Software developed through scrum has to be modified through manual intervention and may even require to change hardware. A system architecture document is prepared in this phase.
- Release: The software is released to the customer. It has one timebox at least. Scrum can have many releases depending upon the development span of the project. Adaptive software usually delivers product in one go.

One of the important questions to be asked during project initiation phase is that whether to invest more or not? Not all methods answer this question. However addressing this question is an important part of the adaptive software development. Scrum doesn’t address this question explicitly. Next step is choosing the appropriate method. Scrum claims that it can be used for any project. Adaptive software development creates a list of all alternatives that can be used and chooses the best one.
The level of formality to be maintained in scrum is given by documents such as running code and backlog. In adaptive software development there are many too many choices to choose from. It makes use of vision statements for clearing out the confusion. Scrum defines a sprint goal which is a kind of timebox vision i.e., it follows one choice for some time and then can change if required.
Scrum avoids elaboration phase for speeding up the delivery. It uses product backlog maintained by the product owner.
Since adaptive software development may have an elaboration phase, it may also have a draft plan initially which may turn into a complete plan after determination of requirements. Scrum plans based on timeboxes.
Both methodologies help you work faster creating products with better quality. The agile customer too is an important role in the agile process. The customers are responsible for providing input during prototyping sessions. The organizing and controlling of user testing is the responsibility of the user. 

How is Adaptive Software Development (ASD) different from Scrum? Part 1

Adaptive software development and scrum both come under the overall heading of agile software development, but are two different beasts with differences between them. These are two different approaches with the same aim i.e., agile development. Below, we will write more on what differentiates the two.
It is necessary to know the differences between these two approaches since Scrum, as a part of agile software development is already a very famous methodology, whereas the adaptive software development is relatively new, but also a strong upcoming methodology ready to take the software development market by storm. Agile methods are always preferred over traditional development approaches to incorporate major factors such as increased levels of customer participation and satisfaction, project delivery flexibility, and acceptance of ongoing requirements or design changes at any level in the development process. This is the usual development scenario and that is why agile development methods are used mostly.  Most commonly used agile methods include:
-  Adaptive software development
- Scrum
- Feature driven development
- Extreme programming

Even though all these strategies aim at the same set of objectives (well almost), they do take somewhat different paths (having some items common, and yet others are different). It is important to know the differences between them. Otherwise how you are going to maintain agility in your development structure? Comparison between different agile methodologies, their common points and differences lets the managers choose the most appropriate agile method for their software characteristics.
There are many traditional techniques for drawing comparisons between 2 software development techniques. In this post, Scrum and ADS have been compared on basis of 2 areas, namely software construction and software requirements.
First difference between adaptive software development and the scrum approach is that in the former, there is no predefined technique to be followed. In scrum there are certain predefined techniques to be followed. On the other hand the focus of adaptive software development is on the end result rather on the steps. Adaptive software development methodology implements a particular technique only if it is required.
Since the last two years agile principles have encompassed methods such as extreme programming, feature driven development, adaptive software development and so on.  So far companies using scrum or adaptive software development have been able to deliver successful products. Scrum is described as a process for management and control used for cutting down the complexity. This is used by the organizations who want to deliver products faster. This approach to software development has been used on advanced development methods including software; it usually works well in the object – oriented development environment.
On the other hand adaptive software development is described as methodology for developing reliable and re – adaptive software. It is used by the organizations who want their products to function in a wide range of changing conditions. Software built with this approach are capable of reconfiguring themselves to better suit to the environment. It can be used under any kind of environment. Any technique can be applied here to make software as much flexible as possible. The owners are responsible for estimating backlog items in scrum. In adaptive software development it is mainly the task of the developers.
Scrum follows time-boxing method for speedy delivery. At the start of each timebox, a sprint planning meeting is held. A backlog that can be achieved is picked up by the team members and they decide how it can be achieved.
Scrum may have 1 to 4 teams with 5 – 9 members and adaptive software development may have even more number of teams dedicated to each phase of development process. Agile developers play a number of roles – analysing, estimating, designing, coding and testing. Even though the typing burden is less, there is a lot of stress because of the short frames. But you get to see your progress through user reviews and daily meetings.

Read next part  (Adaptive Software Development being different from Scrum - Part 2)