The importance of Scrum tools in Agile workflows

They say a craftsperson is only as good as their tools. The same can be said for a Scrum team. While people are at the heart of a successful Scrum project, they’re only as effective as the tools that drive their processes forward.

This article explains the importance of Scrum tools, walks through best practices for their implementation, and highlights our favorite applications that you need in your Scrum tool belt for better team alignment and product development outcomes.

What is a Scrum workflow?

A Scrum workflow is a structured process that guides teams in implementing the Scrum framework — part of Agile methodology. It’s a series of steps and events that Scrum teams work through to deliver products to stakeholders. 

These workflows consist of defined roles within the Scrum team — including the Scrum Master, product owner, and developers — agile events, and tools that facilitate collaboration and efficiency when working through the Scrum process. 

Scrum events, in these workflows, include: 

  • The Sprint itself
  • Backlog refinement
  • Sprint planning
  • Daily stand-ups
  • Sprint reviews
  • Sprint retrospectives 

Throughout this workflow, emphasis is placed on collaboration and iterative progress toward the project goal. Teams work through short work cycles, called Sprints, to deliver incrementally improved products for stakeholder feedback. 

While the Scrum team is at the core of this workflow, tools play an integral part in keeping contributors on track, aligned, and productive. 

What are Scrum tools and why do you need them?

Scrum tools are specialized software applications that are designed to support Agile teams as they work through Scrum workflows. 

They range from tools that help to visualize task boards and timelines, to integration tools that connect Scrum documents to critical operations platforms like Jira, Asana, or Confluence. 

These tools provide essential functionalities for the Scrum team, like: 

  • Planning
  • Refinement and prioritization
  • Task management 
  • Progress tracking 
  • Meeting management
  • Collaboration and communication 

Scrum tools help to align teams around a common source of truth, connect them with reliable communication, offer document sharing functionality, and act as the foundation on which Scrum scenarios are hosted and managed. 

Because of this, Scrum tools play an invaluable role in centralizing work-to-be-done, reducing chaos, and ensuring alignment across the team. The downstream effect of this is better productivity and efficiency, along with clear and transparent communication between team members, and with stakeholders. 

We’ll profile some specific Scrum tools that Miro offers later. But first, let’s explore some best practices and common pitfalls to avoid when deploying Scrum tools. 

Implementing Scrum tools: best practices and pitfalls to avoid

Before onboarding a new tool, teams should do their due diligence to ensure that the application will help, not hinder, their existing workflow. The goal is to solve specific problems and enhance existing outcomes, not create new complexities that get in the way of creating great products. 

To ensure a positive outcomes, we recommend the following: 

  1. Define clear objectives. Establish the goals and outcomes that your team is looking to achieve, define success characteristics, and identify specific areas that can be improved by new tools. 
  2. Vet and choose the right tools. Research and vet various tooling options and select the ones that tick the most boxes on your requirements list. 
  3. Provide training. Ensure that all team members understand how to use the application effectively. 
  4. Customize workflows. Make the new tool your own. Tailor the tool’s templates, features, and visual workspaces to your team’s needs and processes. 
  5. Integrate with existing tools. Connect the Scrum tool with existing platforms to ensure that it plays well with the other critical applications in your tech stack. 
  6. Encourage usage. Empower teams to use these tools across all Scrum cycles going forward to ensure that it becomes newly ingrained in their workflows. 
  7. Review and adapt. Regularly assess the tool’s effectiveness. Adjust settings or workflows as needed to improve efficiency over time. 

At the same time, you should look to avoid some common pitfalls when implementing Scrum tools. 

Specifically: 

  • Overcomplicating the setup. Adding too many features or creating overly complex workflows can confuse the team and reduce efficiency. Start with a simple setup and scale as the team becomes more familiar with the tool.
  • Ignoring team feedback. Overlooking input from the team may lead to low engagement and poor adoption of the tool. Regularly seek feedback to refine processes and ensure the tool meets the team’s evolving needs.
  • An overreliance on tools. Scrum tools should support, not replace, Agile principles. Overemphasizing the tool while neglecting collaboration and adaptability can hinder team dynamics and reduce overall effectiveness. Use the tool as a facilitator, not a crutch.

Of course, the implementation process for your Scrum tools will depend largely on the applications that you ultimately select. More complex tools — or onboarding multiple tools at once — will likely result in a rockier implementation process. 

Selecting an all-in-one platform that can handle a wide range of Scrum-related activities, however, will make implementation and adoption faster and more impactful. Miro is one of those all-in-one platforms that can be onboarded quickly, and expanded to meet your team’s needs. 

15 Scrum tools and templates available within Miro 

Miro offers a suite of templates and integrated tools that teams can use to facilitate each of the Scrum events outlined earlier in this article. 

This includes an online Scrum board on which to plan workflows and collaborate in real-time or async, dozens of templates for various stages of the Scrum workflow, and built-in tools to effectively manage meetings and track progress toward Sprint goals. 

Scrum workflow templates available in Miro include: 

In addition to these templates, Miro offers native features to facilitate successful meetings at all stages of the Scrum workflow. 

This includes: 

  • Workflow status trackers to keep track of tasks, risks, overlapping work, and dependencies. 
  • Private mode, which allows Sprint team members to add comments during retrospectives without being influenced by others on the team.
  • Forecast timelines that help you visualize an entire week, quarter, or year of work. 
  • An estimation app that helps you estimate scope of work, resource requirements, and costs. 
  • A timer that’s displayed on screen to keep events within your desired timeframe. 
  • A dot voting widget that democratizes decision making and makes easy work of prioritizing ideas, features or tasks.  
  • A story point or t-shirt sizing widget to help with high level estimation and driving to a shared understanding of the work to be done.
  • A polling widget to get team or stakeholder feedback on important topics or priorities. 

Finally, Miro natively integrates with Jira and Azure DevOps, ensuring that Scrum teams can push and pull task lists and critical information between their core operating tools. 

Scrum tools: the secret behind successful teams 

A company can bring together the brightest and most capable minds they have. But if those people can’t communicate effectively, share ideas, track progress, and establish a single source of truth, it’s very difficult for them to succeed. 

That’s why finding, onboarding, and perfecting the right Scrum tools should be at the top of the priority list for any product management team. 

Need a tool to manage your Scrum workflows?

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