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Scrum – Doing twice the work in half the time

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Scrum is a framework that helps teams collaborate, much like a rugby team, which gives it its name. It encourages teams to share their experiences and self-organise to solve a problems and deliver value. They also reflect on the losses and wins at regular intervals to ensure they are continuously improving.

Scrum – Doing twice the work in half the time

Scrum is a framework that helps teams collaborate, much like a rugby team, which gives it its name. It encourages teams to share their experiences and self-organise to solve a problems and deliver value. They also reflect on the losses and wins at regular intervals to ensure they are continuously improving.

Although the scrum I am referring to is most commonly used by software developers, its principles and lessons are applicable to any type of teamwork. This is why scrum is so beloved. Scrum is often referred to as an agile project management framework. It describes a collection of meetings, tools and roles that work together to help teams organise and manage their work.

The framework

Many people mistakenly believe that agile and scrum are one in the same. This is because agile is focused on continuous improvement which is its core principle. Scrum is a way to get work done. agile, however, is a mindset. It’s not possible to “go agile” because it requires commitment from all members of the team to shift their thinking about delivering value for customers. You can however use scrum to help you think that way and incorporate agile principles into your work and communication.

Scrum framework is based upon continuous learning and adaptation to changing factors. The scrum framework recognises that the team may not know all the details at the beginning of a project. They will learn from experience. Scrum is designed to allow teams to adapt to changing conditions and user needs. It has re-prioritisation and short release cycles to ensure that your team can always learn and improve.

Although scrum is structured, its execution is flexible. Scrum can be tailored to meet the specific needs of an organisation. There are many theories on how scrum teams should work to achieve success. After more than a 10 years of working with various organisations, it’s clear that communication, transparency and a commitment to continuous improvement should all be at the core of any framework. The rest is up to your discretion.

The Three Pillars of Scrum

In scrum empiricism is woven into its fabric, as we draw new knowledge from our experiences we are able to make decisions based on these observations. By creating a steady flow of hypotheses, and the associated checks that test them, we are able to reduced failures caused by false assumptions.

You will see the three pillars to empirical process control if you examine scrum carefully: transparency, inspection and adaptation.

Transparency:

Transparency in scrum is extremely important, because decisions are made based the team being able to know the real facts. The scrum team must also have transparency about its team agreements, the collaboration methods within and outside the team, and the company vision, strategy, and the product increments. Transparency in scrum is create through the three artifacts (product backlog, sprint backlog, and product increment)

Transparency is essential for inspections to take place. Inspection without transparency will result in a wasteful use of resources and time. Furthermore, it will also lead to inefficient execution of decisions made based on inspections that are not transparent.

Inspection:

Scrum allows us to closely monitor progress towards the agreed sprint goal and the product goal. This gives us early insight into the challenges that may arise during the product increment and development process. The five events that comprise scrum are the sprint, sprint planning and daily scrum, sprint review and the sprint retrospective. Inspection can be done at any time during development, if there are reasons to believe it is necessary.

Inspection is essential for any adaptation. Without inspection, your team could waste a whole sprint trying to make decisions based on adaptations.

Adaption:

If inspection shows that the product increment or development needs to be modified, it is time for process changes. The scrum team determines and executes the actions. To speed up the development and evolution of the development process, the scrum team must be empowered by the surrounding organisation. It is an organisational antipathy to deny a scrum group its self-management.

The 5 Scrum values

As stated in The Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, the success of the Scrum Team depends on 5 values:

The core Scrum Values are the foundation of Scrum. These are:

  • Commitment,
  • Focus,
  • Openness,
  • Respect and
  • Courage

This is a comprehensive view of Scrum values and how they guide our actions, work, and behavior in relation to Scrum.

1. Commitment:

The commitment of every cog in Scrum is crucial for both the micro and macro integrity of each sprint.

The sprint planning process requires that the development team commits to a realistic product increment. Daily Scrum requires that they are accountable for yesterday’s results and commit to the next step.

However, commitment doesn’t have to be made by just one person: it has to include the entire development team. Scrum must be adopted by the entire company. Commitment is not just for the team, it also includes the organisation vowing to be distant and allow the team to achieve its goals.

This value also has other important dimensions. Take, for example:

  • Scrum teams must agree to a sprint increment definition and to delivering it. It won’t be enough to be “nearly done”.
  • Scrum masters must be committed to leading the team towards its goals.
  • After the sprint ends, the team should reflect on their work through a  retrospective and make a commitment to improve the process moving forward.

2. Courage:

Scrum team members can gauge their progress. They rely on Scrum to deliver important increments. Their honesty about their work and the difficulties they face is crucial for the company. This takes courage at all costs.

Negative news suppression can be a death sentence. If people are afraid of speaking up, they might not be able to see the problems that could have been solved.

Scrum masters must have the courage to tell stakeholders bad news. It takes even more courage to stop stakeholders from preventing the team’s progress. This is dependent on team members being honest about their progress and with their colleagues.

It’s a common refrain in the agile community: Improvement takes courage. Scrum teams must improve like the products they produce.

Routines can be comfortable, but it takes courage to challenge the status quo and to go beyond “the way we’ve always done things.”

3. Focus:

The software development landscape is characterised by complexity and uncertainty. Scrum teams must have a clear product vision in order to remain laser-focused even as priorities and user needs change.

Scrum teams can feel overwhelmed even with the best-laid plans. Sometimes, they can lose sight of what the others are doing. It takes the entire team to think as one, and then work together to figure out which tasks are most important and minimise waste.

For example, the product owner must ensure that the product backlog is centered on features that provide the greatest value to clients. Splitting the work is essential for the development team so that everyone can concentrate their efforts on the most important tasks and understands how the pieces fit together.

4. Openness:

Openness is an important Scrum value it relates to the three scrum pillars.

Scrum teams must be transparent about how they are improving products and processes in order to inspect them and adjust them. It is important for team members to feel comfortable discussing their work and concerns about the future.

You’d need to coordinate integration when running a Scrum of Scrums. Imagine activities not being communicated. Redundancies and overlap of work are the best case. At worst, you may not be aware of serious issues that could affect a feature’s useability or shippability until it is too late.

Another aspect of openness is acceptance and receptivity . Everybody needs to be open and willing to accept change, ask for help, as well as provide it. They must be open to learning from others and able to admit their mistakes.

This is evident in the sprint retrospective. It is important that the team be open to discussing both successes and failures. Most importantly, be open to the ideas of others, no matter how bizarre or fantastic. All of them are valid.

5. Respect:

Every person comes from a different background and brings with them different identities and experiences. Respecting each other’s differences is key to working as a team. Even better, celebrate their differences!

Consider the development team. It is made up of people from different functionalities. Although they may not have the same skills, they must work together. Everyone must assume the best intentions of others and do their best to achieve the same goal.

Scrum masters can encourage respect by making sure that everyone who is required to attend a sprint event is present, on-time and engaged.

Let people know that they are valuable and important. Allow problem owners to speak up. Show respect and empathy for others.

Scrum artifacts

Let’s begin by identifying the three artifacts found in scrum. Artifacts can be described as something we create, such as a tool to solve an issue. These three artifacts in scrum are a product backlog, sprint backlog and completed increment of potentially shippable value.

Product Backlog:
The primary list of work to be completed by the product owner/product manager. This dynamic list contains features, requirements, enhancements and fixes. It acts as an input to the sprint backlog. It’s basically the “To Do” list for the team. Because of the constant review, reprioritisation and maintenance by the Product Owner, the product backlog can be updated as needed. Items may become obsolete or new problems might arise.

Sprint backlog:
Scrum backlog refers to the list of items, user stories or bug fixes that the development team has selected for implementation during the current sprint cycle. The sprint planning meeting is held before each sprint. This is where the team decides what items to work on from the product backlog. Sprint backlogs may be flexible during a sprint. The sprint goal, which is what the team wants from the current sprint, cannot be compromised

Increment or Sprint Goal:

This is the potentially shippable/ usable end product from a sprint. These can be showcased to other stakeholders at the end-of-sprint demo. The scrum team agrees on a definition or done (DOD). e Definition of Done (DoD) is based on the agreed criteria that must be met for a project team to consider an aspect of a project shippable or complete. The DoD establishes a shared understanding across the team what must be done for a user story, feature or product to be considered finished.

There are many variations within artifacts that your team can define. It’s important that you are open to changing how you manage artifacts. You might find that your definition of “done” causes too much stress for your team. If this is the case, you may need to go back and choose a different definition.

Scrum ceremonies

The most well-known component of scrum framework is the series of events call Scrum ceremonies. These the meetings that are regularly perform by the scrum teams. Depending which organisation and team you work for you will most probably experience slight variation in these ceremonies. Some teams find all the ceremonies repetitive and cumbersome, while others use them to check in. We recommend that you use all the ceremonies for only two sprints to see how it feels. Then, you can do a quick Retro to see where adjustments might be needed.

Scrum Ceremonies Include:

  1. Backlog creation / grooming: This is the responsibility of the product owner. The product owners are responsible for driving the product towards their product vision and keeping an eye on the market and customers. This list is maintained by the product owner using feedback from customers and developers to help prioritise the items and keep them ready to be worked on.
  2. Sprint planning: This is where the entire development team plans the work (scope) for the current sprint. The scrum master facilitates this meeting and helps the development team decide the sprint goal. The product backlog is used to create specific use stories that are added to the sprint. These stories align with the sprint goal and are agreed on by the scrum team in order to be possible to implement during the sprint.
  3. Sprint:  A sprint is when the scrum team works together in order to complete an increment. A sprint can last for up to 1 month, whereas most sprints lasts for two weeks. However, some teams prefer a shorter time period.

Sprints should be shorter if the work is more complicated and has more unknowns. It’s up to the dev team to decide what the sprint should look like. If necessary, scope can be renegotiated between product owners and development teams. This is the core of scrum’s empirical nature.

The sprint includes all events, from planning, daily stand-ups to the retrospective and actual implementation. Once a time period for a sprint has been established, it must remain constant throughout the iteration period. This allows the team to learn from past experiences and use that knowledge in future sprints.

  1. Daily scrum: Also known as the scrum stand-up. This short meeting is held every day at the same time, usually in the mornings. It’s designed to keep things simple. Although many teams aim to finish the meeting within 15 minutes, this is a guideline. This meeting is recommended to be held as stand-up meeting, where people latterly stand up, this emphasises that it should be quick. The daily scrum aims to bring everyone together, to align with the sprint goal and to create a plan for the next 24hrs.

The three common questions which are asked in the daily stand-up are:

* What did I worked on yesterday?

* What are my plans for today?

* Are there any obstacles or impediments?

Don’t be afraid of changing it up and getting creative. The idea behind the stand-up is keep things fresh and moving while allowing the team to focus on their work. If it becomes a daily calendar read-out for the team, its time to-do something different.

  1. Sprint review: At the end the sprint, the team gathers for an informal session to see a demo or inspect the increment. For feedback, the development team displays items from their backlog to teammates and stakeholders. The product owner decides whether the increment meets the definition of done and if it is shippable or not.

Within the sprint review meeting the product owner refines the product backlog and makes any necessary changes based on the feedback from the sprint. A sprint review should be limited to four hours for a one month sprint.

  1. Sprint retrospective:

Dedicated Scrum Masters will look for alternatives to the boring, fearful meetings that everyone has grown to expect. A safe environment for a retrospective is essential. This is not the case in most companies. Safety is essential for a retrospective discussion to avoid blaming or hostility.

Human nature’s tendency to quickly jump to conclusions and suggest actions is another obstacle to an insightful retrospective. In a retrospective the team sets the stage, gathers data, generate insights, decides what to do, closes the retrospective.

Scrum Roles

There are three roles which are required for a scrum team:

  • product owner
  • scrum master
  • development team

Scrum development teams are cross-functional and generally include testers, designers, UX specialists, ops engineers, and developers.

Product Owner role:

Product owners are the real captain of their product. They focus on understanding the market, customers, and business requirements. Then they prioritise the work done by the development team. Product owners generally do the following actions:

  • Manage and build the product backlog.
  • Partner closely with the business team and the team to ensure that everyone is aware of the items in the product backlog.
  • Provide clear direction to the team on what features they should deliver next.
  • With a preference for more frequent shipping, decide when the product should be shipped.

Product owners are not always product managers. Product owners are focused on making sure the development team adds the most value to the company and its stakeholders. There should be single product owner as the development team doesn’t want to receive guidance from multiple product owners.

The scrum master:

Scrum masters lead the scrum team and are captains of the process. They are the ones who coach the teams, product owners and business members on scrum and seek ways to improve their practice.

A scrum master is a person who has a deep understanding of the work done by the team. He/she can help optimise transparency and flow for the team. As the facilitator, he/she schedules the needed resources for sprint planning, stand-up, sprint review, and the sprint retrospective.

The scrum development team:

Scrum teams development are generally teams who are close-knit and co-located with five to seven members. Its general practice to have different skill sets among team members. Cross-functional teams are a great way to ensure that no one becomes a bottleneck when it comes to the delivery of work. To ensure a successful sprint, all members of the team work together.

Each sprint’s plan is driven by the scrum team. The scrum team forecasts how much work they think they can accomplish over each iteration, using their historical velocity as a guide. The development team can keep the iteration length fixed to get feedback on their estimations and delivery processes, which makes their forecasts more accurate over time.

Key Learning Points:

  • Empirical process control allows for transparency, inspection, and adaptation for decision-making instead of up-front planning.
  • Self-organisation is built on the concept that employees have more to offer than just their technical expertise.
  • Collaboration brings stakeholders and developers together to deliver the greatest value.
  • Value-based prioritisation assures that what is most valuable to the customer gets completed first to increase return on investment.
  • Time-boxing recognizes that time is the most crucial factor in managing and executing Scrum projects.
  • Iterative development allows for course correction as all people get a better understanding of what needs to be delivered as part of the project.

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