Scrum & Agile

1. Scrum is a framework for getting work done, whilst agile is a mindset.
2. Scrum framework is heuristic
3. Sprints are at the very heart of scrum
4. Meetings are crucial
5. Backlogging
6. Let’s Review the Sprints!
7. Scrums of scrums
8. Scrum vs. Kanban

Scrum is a framework for getting work done, whilst agile is a mindset.

Scrum is a framework to put those agility principles into practice by allowing teams to work together. This is different from agile because this focuses on the behaviours required for scrum, like teamwork or solving short problems to achieve a longer-term goal. In short – agility is akin to the methodology to implement scrum.

Scrum framework is heuristic.

Scrum is based on continuous learning and development. It acknowledges that users may not have experience at the start but are able to build on their knowledge through collaboration and learning. Scrum encourages teams to learn through experiences, self-organize and to reflect on both the failings and successes of a solution to continuously improve. This allows developers or engineers to break down problems into ‘sprints’, where they can collaboratively work on these sprints to deliver a more efficient solutions. These sprints allow teams to reach goals end more quickly. This in turn, will improve satisfaction within teams because they are able to demonstrate progress. Moreover, Scrum accepts change. This is important because requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration.

Sprints are at the very heart of scrum

Sprint planning is carrying out a meeting to form a sprint where you decide on both the criteria and time-box of the sprint. Essentially, ‘Sprint planning kicks of a sprint by setting the agenda and the focus’. This is important because bad sprint planning can lead to unrealistic expectations and time-frames, which will prevent keeping the team motivated and focused.

The process involves:

1. The What – Project owner describes goal and backlogs items that contribute to the sprint. The team also describes what contributions can be made during the splint and their plans to achieve them.
2. The How- developer team negotiating with the project plan on what is required to achieve the goal.
3. The Who- Project owner is needed to define the goal and values required. The Developer team is needed to understand if they can or cannot deliver the goal.
4. The inputs- deciding on what is required for the sprint.
5. The outputs- focusing on the end goal and how they will work towards this.

Meetings are crucial

Meetings are integral to scrum because it allows individuals to demonstrate team work and allows developer team to communicate with the team owner on their updates and problems. Meeting include;

• Sprint planning- deciding on the goal and agenda for a sprint. Sprint planning must be constrained to 2 hours of each week of the sprint and this is carried out by the Scrum master.
• Daily-Stand-up- Allows developers to provide updates on their progress and this should be contained in a relaxed environment. This allows individuals to demonstrate self-responsibility as they are taking accountability for their own progress. This ensures all the team provides their own involvement in helping to solve the sprint. This should be longer than 15 minutes a day.
• Iteration review- This can be casual or formal. This allows the teams to celebrate their accomplishments, work and allow for feedback. This should be 30-60 minutes a day.
• Retrospectives- focus on feedback to problems and implementing & developing solutions that work better for continuous improvements. This helps the team to understand what worked well and what did not.
In short, ‘Agile ceremonies facilitate communication across the team’.

Backlogging

A meeting for the sprint meeting. This is akin to a plan to finalise the details of the problem and examining if certain part require more information. This is done to prevent time being wasted in the splint planning. Product backlog is prioritized list of work for the development team, where the most important are shown at the top. This is provided from the team’s roadmap. Teams roadmap and requirements provide foundation for the product backlog. Roadmap initiative are broken down into several epics and each epic has several requirement and user stories. Product owner uses user stories to produce a list for the development team. The Prioritisation of backlog not done solely by the product owner, an effective one seeks input from their customers and development team to optimise workload and product delivery. Product owner is free to re-prioritise the backlog with added feedback.

Product owner prioritization is influenced by;

• Customer priorirty
• Implementation Complexity
• Urgency of getting feedback
• Symbiotic relationship between work items

Let’s Review the Sprints!

A time for individual members to show of their work and focus on their achievements. Allows them to present to the team their implementation and makes them feel good about themselves. This is a consensus of progress and achievements within the team. Demonstrate feature and orientate development team to doing things that add value.

• what is done and not done - carried out by their product owner
• Demo the work - carried out by the development team. This Allows team to discuss how it works and how it will be used by the user. Really encourages accountability and keeps the team engaged by allowing everyone is to ask questions and helps to provide clarity with small problem to prevent these snowballing into large problems.
• Review key metrics- Time to review measurable outcomes. E.g. Has this improved the performance
• Review and revise product backlog– This involve removing or adding user items to backlog in response to the demos if priorities have changed. The revise focuses on the next sprint meeting.

Scrum Master vs Product Manager

A scrum Master is essentially a non-technical project manager. Both focus on how they are going to get their work done. However, a product manager does this through time frames and reports on progress from a place of control in the traditional sense. A scrum master almost works as a team member by helping the team in collaborating and organisation. They also help in establishing communications between the product owners and developers and helps in focusing on getting task done.

Scrums of scrums

This is a scaled agile technique that offers a way to connect to multiple teams that need to get a project done. The Aim is to coordinate smaller, independent teams. This is done as the larger a team is, the harder it is to communicate so doing this help to meet an aim more easily. All delivering their own goals but allows them to complement to each other. This involves two or more teams working together for a time to re-negotiate responsibility and encourages organisation

Scrum vs. Kanban