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March 07, 2021

Traditional project management focuses on detailed upfront planning, while Scrum focuses on rapid value delivery.

Traditional project management emphasizes detailed up-front project planning, with emphasis on defining scope, cost and schedule, and managing those parameters. Whereas Scrum encourages data-driven, iterative decision making in which the primary focus is on delivering products that satisfy customer requirements.

To deliver the most amount of value in the shortest possible time, Scrum promotes prioritization and Time-boxing over setting the scope, cost and schedule of a project. An important feature of Scrum is self-organization, which allows individuals who are actually doing the work to estimate and take ownership of tasks.

The following table summarizes many of the differences between Scrum and traditional project management:

Parameters	Scrum	Traditional Project Management
Emphasis is on	People	Processes
Documentation	Minimal - only as required	Comprehensive
Process style	Iterative	Linear
Upfront planning	Low	High
Prioritization of Requirements	Based on business value and regularly updated	Fixed in the Project Plan
Quality assurance	Customer centric	Process centric
Organization	Self-organized	Managed
Management style	Decentralized	Centralized
Change	Updates to Productized Product Backlog	Formal Change Management System
Leadership	Collaborative, Servant Leadership	Command and control
Performance measurement	Business value	Plan conformity
Return on Investment	Early/throughout project life	End of project life
Customer involvement	High throughout the project	Varies depending on the project lifecycle