Godwin Robotics Team has had their eyes set on ambitious goals this year, including working on their 17.0 robot project, releasing monthly newsletters, and making their video for the F.I.R.S.T. Impact Awards, a robotics competition. Regarding the Robotics team’s progress, Godwin senior and Robotics Team co-president, Vigneshwar Ranganathan, credited their success to the the Scrum methodology.
“Scrum is a framework used to help teams work together efficiently, especially in software development and project management,” Ranganathan explained. “It helps teams plan, execute, improve, and reflect their work through short, structured cycles called sprints.” He discussed how this practice has played a large role in the team’s workflow, making weekly tasks build up into large accomplishments.”
Deduced into simpler terms, he gave the example of making of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“If someone’s ‘sprint item’ was to buy peanut butter, jelly, and bread and yours is to rub peanut butter and jelly on the bread, your task has dependency on someone else going to buy the peanut butter, jelly and bread… it helps us track what to do, how to move into the next sprint, and helps us with the sprint retrospect, which essentially is a reflection of what was done, what was good, and what can be improved.”
Ranganathan explains how Robotics implements Scrum. “There is more to it than just a small and short plan, there are other key items that play a role in Scrum,” said Ranganathan.
The roles played in this system are detailed, as leaders take on the responsibility of enforcing the team’s productivity. “The technical side officers play the product owner role, they decide what needs to be done and prioritize tasks, and mentors play the Scrum Master role, they help the team stay on track and remove obstacles,” said Ranganathan. All of these roles manage boards which is where the sprints and product backlog are.
Scrum is used through software that stores and displays all the sprints and backlogs in a Kanban-style format. There are various Scrum tools such as Jira, monday.com, and ClickUp.
The use of Scrum is relatively new to Godwin’s Robotics Team. Ranganathan said, “Our first year using [Scrum] was in my sophomore year, and we were using a software called ClickUp and essentially we didn’t keep using it [because] it wasn’t as in-depth.” The team eventually transitioned to monday.com, which was described as “more comprehensive” and effective for the team’s goals.
Ultimately, Scrum has become the centerpiece of the Robotics Team’s productivity and a key reason for the success of the club.
