Scrum

 

What is Scrum?

Scrum is a thin and iterative project management process, which belongs to the Agile methods family.Scrum is an empirical Agile (see links) project management framework used to deliver increments of high value to the customer iteratively.

 

The framework

Roles

There are three roles in a Scrum project:

• The Product Owner (or customer) owns the product and prioritizes the list of desired features.
• The ScrumMaster owns the process and ensures that teams remain unhindered and productive.
• The cross-functional Team self-organize to build the product.

Artifacts

Scrum defines three artifacts that the roles interact with during the life of the project:

• The Product Backlog is a prioritized list of desired features.
• The Sprint Backlog is a prioritized list of tasks that the team have identified for the current Sprint (iteration).
• The Increment of Product Functionality which is delivered at the end of each Sprint.

Meetings

There are four meetings, or collaboration points, that are used during each Sprint:

• Sprint Planning allows the team to elect what work they will be taking on for the Sprint.
• The Daily Scrum allows the team to review the status of the Sprint and adapt to discoveries.
• The Sprint Review gives the Team an opportunity to show the Product Owner the increment of product functionality.
• The Sprint Retrospective allows the team to provide feedback and adapt the process.

 

The short Scrum story

• Scrum is based on an “empirical” (defined below) process, it is iterative and adaptive with a keen eye on the work the Sprint Team has committed to accomplish based on continual assessment in real time
• The Scrum Master looks after the health of the “Team”
• The Product Owner looks after the business value and ROI earned by delivering the product
• The Product Owner determines the right things to do based on their business value while the Scrum Master determines with the team the right way to do them

 

 

 

 

 

 

Product Owner Responsibilities

• Responsible for managing the Product Backlog so as to maximize the “business value” of the project to the business
• Represents all stakeholders in the project
• Prioritizes features/requirements

 

Scrum Master Responsibilities

• Fundamentally responsible for the “health” of the team
• Ensure everyone is doing what they have agreed to do
• Determine where Scrum is compared to where it could be and adapts
• Use all ones senses, including common sense

 

 

Scrum Teams

• Self-organizing
• Cross-functional with no rules
• Seven  plus or minus two
• Responsible for committing to work
• Authority to do whatever is needed to meet commitment
• Open, collocated space
• Resolution of conflicts
• Rules of Etiquette:

§         Never use the word “you” because the other person may feel on the spot and defensive

§         Never refer to history (e.g., ‘three months ago, you said…!”)

·         Be on time for meetings; if you are late, apologize and pay a late “penalty”

§         If everyone is talking at once, use a pen to determine who talks; whoever is holding the pen talks, everyone else listens

§         Everyone’s opinion is important and needs to be understood and taken into account

§         No name calling

 

Sprint

• Thirty calendar day iteration (some are shorter)
• During the Sprints the team builds demonstrable functionality that includes Product Backlog items and meets Sprint goal; based on Product Owner’s prioritization of features/requirements as listed in the Product Backlog
• If the Sprint proves to be not viable, the Scrum Master can abnormally terminate the Sprint and initiate a new Sprint planning meeting to initiate the next Sprint

 

Product Backlog

·         List/Collection of functionality, technology, issues, risk

·         Issues and risk are placeholders that are later defined as work

·         Emergent, prioritized, estimated

·         One collection for multiple teams

·         Product Owner responsible for priority

·         Anyone can contribute

·         Maintained and posted visibly

·         Derived from Business Plan or Vision

 

Sprint Backlog

• Defines the work, or tasks, that a Team defined for turning the Product Backlog it selected for that Sprint into an increment of potentially shippable product functionality
• The Sprint Backlog is a highly visible, real-time picture of the work that the Team plans to accomplish during the Sprint

Burn-Down Chart

• Shows the amount of work remaining across time
• Excellent way of visualizing the correlation between the amount of work remaining at any point in time and the progress of the project Team(s) in reducing this work
• The intersection of a trend line for work remaining and the horizontal axis indicates the most probable completion of work at that point in time