Thursday, 16 February 2017

Scrum in few words

Note about scrum. It is mostly based on Scum Guide but in much shorter way and with some examples from my experience.

Scrum is a framework for developing and sustaining complex products

Roles

The Product Owner -  is the person responsible for managing the Product Backlog (describing items, ordering and prioritization ). Also Product owner may delegate his responsibilities to the Dev Team.
 However, the Product Owner remains accountable, and you should consult with him.

The Development Team  - decide how to turn Product Backlog into Increments of potentially releasable functionality.  Are cross-functional, with all of the skills to create a product Increment;
Usually having 3-9 members.

The Scrum Master -is responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood and enacted. 

Service to the Product Owner (help in Product Backlog management, helping the Scrum Team understand product backlog items, Facilitating Scrum events)

Service to the Development Team (Coaching, Helping the Development Team to create product, Facilitating Scrum events, Removing impediments)

Scrum Events

The heart of Scrum is a Sprint, a time-box of one month or less during which a “Done”, usable, and potentially releasable product Increment is created. Sprints best have consistent duration throughout a development effort. A new Sprint starts immediately after the conclusion of the previous Sprint.

Sprints contain and consist of the Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, the development work, the Sprint Review, and the Sprint Retrospective.

Sprint Planning 
Sprint Planning answers the following:
  • What can be delivered in the Increment resulting from the upcoming Sprint? 
  • How will the work needed to deliver the Increment be achieved? 
The input to this meeting is the Product Backlog, the latest product Increment, projected capacity of the Development Team during the Sprint, and past performance of the Development Team. The number of items selected from the Product Backlog for the Sprint is solely up to the Development Team. Only the Development Team can assess what it can accomplish over the upcoming Sprint.

The Development Team usually starts by designing the system and the work needed to convert the Product Backlog into a working product Increment.

The Product Owner can help to clarify the selected Product Backlog items and make trade-offs. If the Development Team determines it has too much or too little work, it may renegotiate the selected Product Backlog items with the Product Owner.

For example each member says his capacity. Scrum master displays all jiras with some release version. All team estimates jiras. You could also use excell to group planned tasks.

Frequent approach is sending email with sprint backlogs items after planning to Product Owner (if he can't participate)

Sprint Goal 
The Sprint Goal is an objective set for the Sprint that can be met through the implementation of Product Backlog. It provides guidance to the Development Team on why it is building the Increment.

Try to make it clear, you could use SMART approach 

Daily Scrum
The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team to synchronize activities and create a plan for the next 24 hours. This is done by inspecting the work since the last Daily Scrum and forecasting the work that could be done before the next one.

 the Development Team members explain:
  • What did I do yesterday that helped the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal? 
  • What will I do today to help the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal? 
  • Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal? 
Very useful is tracking progress of each individual task (maybe visually), tracking time (ex member A done 2h from 15h ), use color markers for each task (red/green/blue approach depending on item, status).

 It could be on scrum board with three main parts todo/ in progress/ done.

Sprint Review
A Sprint Review is held at the end of the Sprint to inspect the Increment and adapt the Product Backlog if needed.During the Sprint Review, the Scrum Team and stakeholders, product owner collaborate about what was done in the Sprint.The entire group collaborates on what to do next.

The result of the Sprint Review is a revised Product Backlog

For example demo of new features is good thing here. 

Sprint Retrospective
The Sprint Retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint. Inspect how the last Sprint went with regards to people, relationships, process,and tools.

Good approach here to write on board pluses and minuses and possible todo plan to implement in new sprint.

Scrum Artifacts 

Product Backlog - is an ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product.

Good technique sometimes is to refine some big or complex product backlog items for the next sprint, to be able to estimate them well on the planning

Sprint Backlog - is the set of Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint, plus a plan for delivering the product Increment and realizing the Sprint Goal. It is only forecast.

Good technique is to add label in jira with sprint number

Definition of “Done” - when a Product Backlog item or an Increment is described as “Done”, everyone must understand what “Done” means.

For example developer committed change and closed an jira, QA passed jira, Reporter closed it. 

Good technique is to have it printed somewhere to be visible for all team.

References
Download the official Scrum Guide
Stuff Every Agile Development Team Needs to Know: A Primer

2 comments:

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