Scrum vs Agile Classrooms: What's the Difference?

Agile Classrooms: Inspired by Scrum, Designed for Learning

Through years of experimentation and feedback from classrooms around the world, we learned that a direct adoption of Scrum didn’t quite fit the realities of education. Agile Classrooms emerged by observing what worked, what didn’t, and what needed to be adapted. It has been field-tested and iterated on with real teachers and students—making it practical, not theoretical.

Agile Classrooms draws significant inspiration from Scrum, but it's a distinct framework tailored for educational settings. While Scrum provides the foundation for many of its structures and routines, Agile Classrooms is a cross-pollination of ideas from multiple disciplines—including education theory (like Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development), Agile practices (like Scrum and Kanban), and classroom-proven strategies for fostering student agency and self-direction.

Core Difference: Scrum focuses on business product development with adult professionals, while Agile Classrooms emphasizes student learning and skill development.

Adaptation, Not Adoption: Agile Classrooms adapts Scrum principles to empower students and support teachers, acknowledging the unique rhythms and realities of classrooms.

Bridging Industry and Education: This approach connects the processes and mindsets of both worlds, preparing students for real-world collaboration and success.

Scrum vs. Agile Classrooms

Here’s a breakdown of the differences between Scrum and Agile Classrooms, highlighting how Agile principles are adapted for student learning:

Framework Purpose

🔄 Scrum – Scrum is designed to deliver customer value through working products. The framework is structured around building usable product increments during fixed-length Sprints. These increments are intended to be potentially shippable, adding value to external users or customers each cycle.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Agile Classrooms is designed to foster student growth—specifically in self-direction, collaboration, and mastery. It uses iterative cycles not to ship products, but to create visible evidence of learning and progress. Projects and deliverables may be used, but the primary outcome is developing student skills and habits of mind.

Team Structure

🔄 Scrum – Scrum teams are cross-functional from the outset, meaning all skills necessary to deliver a product increment are present within the team. The diversity of skills allows them to independently complete complex work without relying on people outside the team.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Students are not yet equipped with all the skills needed to execute team-based projects from day one. While cognitive diversity is still encouraged, teams are composed based on complementary strengths—often mixing character strengths, learning preferences, and academic abilities, using tools like the Strong Team Maps activity. Agile Classrooms begins with individual learning and gradually scaffolds toward effective team collaboration using tools like the Spectrum of Choice and Collaboration.

Team Size

🔄 Scrum – Optimal team size is 10 or fewer. This size is still considerably larger than typical Agile Classrooms teams because professional Scrum teams often require a full range of technical and domain-specific expertise to design, build, and deliver a working product.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – 3–5 students per team to ensure participation, voice, and manageable collaboration. Students are not hired with technical or collaborative expertise—they are still learning these skills. Smaller teams help reduce communication overhead and support skill development in a supportive, less overwhelming environment.

Daily Coordination

🔄 Scrum – Daily Scrum is a brief daily meeting where team members align and plan the next 24 hours. This works well in professional settings where team members collaborate full-time, often 40 hours a week. Daily coordination ensures continuous progress and responsiveness in a fast-paced business environment.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Check-In Routines serve a similar purpose—helping students align, reflect, and plan—but they are intentionally flexible. Since students typically work together only during specific class periods (which may not meet daily), Check-Ins are adapted to the rhythm of the school day and used in ways that support autonomy without adding time pressure.

Roles

🔄 Scrum – Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Developers each have defined responsibilities to maintain flow, clarify value, and build the product. These roles are central to Scrum’s operation.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Defines only three roles: Teacher, Learners, and occasionally Facilitator. These roles are dynamic and shift as students grow in autonomy. The teacher starts with more control and gradually releases responsibility to students as they build capability.

Student Ownership & Growth

🔄 Scrum – Teams are self-managing from day one. This works in business environments where team members are professional adults with the experience, discipline, and collaborative skills to manage their own workflow without close supervision.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Students often haven't yet developed those same skills. While adult professionals are expected to self-manage from the start, students require support to develop autonomy. Agile Classrooms recognizes this gap and uses scaffolding, coaching, and structured routines to grow student ownership over time. Agile Classrooms intentionally scaffolds the path toward self-management by using structures like the Spectrum of Choice and Collaboration. The goal is to grow students' capacity over time until they can manage their learning and teamwork independently.

Time-Boxing Flexibility

🔄 Scrum – Sprints are fixed-length time-boxes (e.g., one month or less) to create a predictable rhythm for planning, delivery, and review. Consistency helps maintain momentum and alignment across business teams.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – By default, Agile Classrooms uses iterative cycles, typically lasting a month or less, to help students develop skills over time through repeated routines. However, teachers have the flexibility to use Self-Directed Learning Routines outside of a cycle structure as well. This adaptability ensures the framework fits different subjects, schedules, and classroom needs while still supporting iterative learning.

Backlog Focus

🔄 Scrum – The Product Backlog lists the features, fixes, and deliverables that will create value for the end user. It evolves based on feedback, business goals, and technical needs.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – The Learning Backlog includes not only project deliverables but also skills to develop, content to understand, and goals to pursue. It shifts the focus from output to personal and academic growth.

Increment Type

🔄 Scrum – Product increment: a usable version of the product by the end of the Sprint. Each increment builds upon the last and is potentially shippable to customers.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Progress increment: any artifact or performance that demonstrates learning growth. It might be a prototype, reflection, draft, or peer feedback session—what matters is visible progress, not completion.

Value Delivery

🔄 Scrum – Value is delivered to external customers and users. The team exists to build and release useful features that solve real-world problems or meet user needs.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Students create value for themselves through learning. They are the primary beneficiaries of their own growth. In PBL or authentic learning contexts, they may also present to external audiences or solve real problems, but the core value is internal—growth in knowledge, skills, and self-direction.

Framework Flexibility

🔄 Scrum – Scrum is defined as immutable, meaning you must use all of its roles, events, and rules as described. If you modify or omit any part of Scrum, it is no longer considered true Scrum. This strict adherence is intended to preserve its structure and ensure consistent delivery of value in a corporate context.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Modular and adaptive by design. It recognizes that every classroom is different, so teachers can customize routines, use the elements that fit their needs, and modify practices without invalidating the framework. This flexibility supports teacher autonomy and contextual responsiveness.

Completion Criteria

🔄 Scrum – Scrum teams use a shared Definition of Done (DoD) to clarify when work is complete and meets quality expectations. This ensures transparency and alignment across the team.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – While a Definition of Done can be used, most classrooms already use rubrics or clearly defined success criteria to determine quality and completion. These tools are familiar to educators and more flexible across different content areas.

Sprint Review

🔄 Scrum – Sprint Review is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to present the product increment to stakeholders and gather feedback on progress. It’s designed to foster transparency, adapt the Product Backlog, and ensure continuous alignment with stakeholder needs.
🎓 Agile Classrooms – Review Routine involves students sharing their learning and receiving feedback from peers, teachers, and sometimes external audiences. While authentic learning contexts like PBL may include outside stakeholders, most feedback loops are internal and focused on reflection, growth, and learning rather than product validation.

Conclusion

Agile Classrooms isn’t just a translation of Scrum into education—it’s a thoughtful transformation. It blends Agile thinking, educational theory, and classroom experience into a framework that supports real student growth. More than a method, it’s a mindset shift—for both learners and educators—that prepares students to thrive in a world that values collaboration, adaptability, and lifelong learning.

Next Steps

📘 Explore the Agile Classrooms Framework for K-12
🧠 Ready to put it into practice? Join an Agile Classrooms Teacher Certification (ACT) Workshop
🏫 Looking to bring Agile to your entire school or district? Visit the Agile for Education Landing Page

🏅 Earn 0.25 SEUs/PDUs for reading this! Renew your PMI PMP or Scrum Alliance certifications such as CSM or CSPO.