Scrum Refresher

English Welcome back, here we will have a quick visit of the scrum process. If you have a good knowledge on Scrum, you can skip this video and move on to the next section. Let’s start with scrum processes. Every software project is intended to convert a number of requirements in to a working software, an increment, or a change. Scrum follows an iterative and incremental approach. The work is carried out in multiple iterations called Sprints. Sprint is time boxed to a maximum of one month. The purpose of the sprint is to create, a potentially shippable increment of working software. Before getting in to the details of this process, let’s discuss different roles defined in Scrum. The Development Team consists of professionals, who do the work of delivering a potentially releasable Increment of, “Done” product at the end of each Sprint. Only members of the Development Team create the Increment. Development Teams are self-organizing. They decide how they are going to create a shippable increment at the end of the sprint. Development Teams are cross functional. They have all the skills required to convert the selected requirements in to “done”, shippable increment. The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product, resulting from work of the Development Team. He or She owns the requirements. This activity consists of, detailing backlog items, ordering or prioritizing it to maximize the value and clearly communicating them to the team. He or she also reviews, and accepts or rejects the increment, produced by the team. The Scrum Master is a servant leader, a facilitator, and a coach. The Scrum Master is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum. Scrum Masters do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values. He or She ensures that the scrum is understood and enacted by the team. He or She facilitates the scrum events as required. Scrum Master makes sure the impediments for the development team are removed. The Product owner, the development team and the Scrum Master, together referred as the Scrum Team. Product backlog captures all the requirements needed to be included in the product. This is created and maintained by the product owner. The Product Backlog is an ordered list of everything that is known to be needed in the product. Sprint start with a sprint planning meeting. This is time boxed to 8 hours for one-month sprints. For shorter sprints it is usually shorter. Product owner explains the product backlog items, and set the priorities. Development team select items for upcoming sprint based on their capacity. Team velocity, the size of work. Team velocity, the size of work that they have successfully delivered in last sprint, helps as a guideline while deciding their capacity for next sprint. Together, the scrum team agree up on the sprint goal. In the second part of the planning meeting, team create an initial plan for converting the selected items to a shippable increment. In the second part of the planning meeting, team create an initial plan for converting the selected items to a shippable increment. This may be in the form of technical tasks for each selected item, or may be only for items to start with. The selected backlog items, with a plan for achieving it, make the Sprint Backlog. Development team owns the sprint backlog, and keep it updated throughout the sprint. The development team start working on the selected backlog items, towards creating the increment, to achieve the sprint goal. They do design, development and testing all in the same sprint. They will do whatever required to achieve the sprint goal. Every day, the development team does a daily Scrum meeting. This is of 15 minutes duration. This takes the form of a stand-up meeting, where the development team collaborate and decide on actions to be done before next daily scrum. It is kind of a quick daily planning. Normally, it takes a form where every member answer three questions. What I have done since last daily scum, for achieving the sprint goal? What I am going to do till next daily scrum? Am I seeing any threats for the sprint goal? At the end of the sprint the scrum team, and other stakeholders as invited by the product owner, conduct a sprint review. This is time boxed to 4 hours for one-month sprints. For shorter sprints it is usually shorter. During the Sprint Review, the Scrum Team and stakeholders collaborate about what was done in the Sprint. Based on that, and any changes to the Product Backlog during the Sprint, attendees collaborate on the next things, that could be done. This is an informal meeting, not a status meeting, and the presentation of the Increment is intended to elicit feedback and foster collaboration. 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. This is time boxed to 3 hours for one-month sprints. For shorter sprints it is usually shorter. There are different methods used for retrospectives. For example, team may try to find out What went well, what didn’t go well, what are the areas of improvement. Both Sprint review and sprint retrospective may have outcome, that impact the next sprint planning. A new sprint starts immediately after the previous sprint ends, there is no gap in between. Scrum teams conduct sprints one after the other, creating software increments, in an iterative and incremental way. As mentioned before, the development team create tested and shippable increment at the end of each sprint. It may get deployed as it is, or wait for further increments. However, the development team will keep on producing shippable increments. As we have already seen, there are roles, ceremonies, and artifacts prescribed by SCRUM. The roles are the product owner, the development team and the scrum master. The ceremonies are, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospectives. The artifacts are, Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and the Increment.