What is Scrum?
Scrum is a simple but powerful project framework that allows teams
to examine and adapt a product as it is produced. Scrum allows teams of
people to develop complex products in a rapidly changing environment.
Starting Scrum
Scrum starts with the Product Manager, the person who has the
responsibility of deciding what should be produced to achieve business
success, getting input from all stakeholders. The Product Manager
produces and supervises a prioritized list of business requirements
called the Product Backlog. The Product Backlog is constantly revised
by the Product Manager to reflect changes in market demands and
customer requests.
The Sprint Phase
Work is carried out in iterations called Sprints that last from two
to four weeks. Before each Sprint, the team selects what it will commit
to deliver by the end of the Sprint, starting at the top of the Product
Backlog. This ensures that the features in the product with the highest
business value will be delivered first. The team then splits the items
into development tasks and estimating the time for each task. When all
of the team’s available hours have been assigned, the actual Sprint
begins.
Each day, the team updates simple charts that show their progress towards their goal for the Sprint.
- The Sprint Backlog reflects the current state and
progress of the Sprint concerning the exact tasks that the team is
working on. The Sprint Backlog is updated daily by each member of the
team to reflect the amount of hours left for each task.
- The
Burn-down Chart shows the cumulative work remaining in the Sprint on a
day-to-day basis. The team updates the hours left for each task in the
Sprint Backlog. This shows the development velocity of the team.
At the end of each Sprint, the team delivers a potentially shippable
product – this means that functionality that has been designed, fully
implemented, and fully tested, with no major defects and with the
proper documentation.
Daily Scrum
Every day, the team has a 15-minute meeting to report just three
things: what is being done, what will be done tomorrow, and issues that
are blocking the work. The first two items give the team insight on how
the project is progressing, while the third item provides a basis for
problem solving. Anyone in the organization can listen in on these
meetings, but only team members are allowed to speak up. Questions can
be clarified after the meeting.
The Sprint Review
After the sprint is finished, the team presents the product
increment that they have built so far. The meeting can be attended be
anyone in the organization, but usually the Product Manager is usually
the primary target audience. The Product Manager also gathers feedback
from everyone on ways to improve what has been built and this is
incorporated into the Product Backlog. Thus, processes are continually
improved, and critical problems are identified and addressed.
Roles
The Scrum Team, which normally consists of five to nine people,
performs the actual work of problem solving and designing. The team has
all the skills to produce the finished product – such as designers,
coders, testers, and so on – and members decide how the work is
arranged and how assignments are distributed.
The Product Manager owns the vision of what the product should be
from a business perspective. The Product Manager is in charge of the
Product Backlog, a constantly updated “to do” list where the
specifications for a product are prioritized based on business value.
The ScrumMaster teaches and guides the team in the use of Scrum. He
also ensures the efficiency of the team by removing impediments to the
team’s tasks, and protects the team from outside disruption and
interference. The ScrumMaster is absolutely essential to the team’s
success in using Scrum.