Faster, Better, and Happier Alma Management Using Scrum: An Experiment

In an effort to further increase productivity within a large library system, Princeton’s five Alma Administrators (“Alma Tech Team” or “ATT”) recently achieved “Scrum master” certification. Scrum is an agile project management framework that originated within the context of software development but which is widely applicable with just a little creativity. Our experimental implementation of the Scrum methodology has thus far demonstrably increased our efficiency, work quality (through more systematic reviews), and general happiness, through greater focus and autonomy. An overview of Scrum will be presented along with our adaptations, tools, and lessons learned to date.