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Scrum workshop demo
1. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
By Nader Khorrami Rad
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I)
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
2. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Part 1
Introduction
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
3. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
What is Scrum?
Classical project management systems, as described in the PMBOK Guide and
PRINCE2, and implemented in many classic IT development methods, is not as
effective as it should be, in cases that:
Change
Request
Scope of work changes frequently and dramatically
Change
Request
Change
Request
Change
Request
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4. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Scope of work changes frequently and dramatically
You won’t find extreme changes in construction projects for example; a project
initiated to build a hospital will never end up with a product such as a theme park.
But in IT projects, a “hospital” can turn into a “theme park”!
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5. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
What is Scrum?
In case of IT projects, we prefer to use a project management system that
delivers both of the following characteristics:
Being flexible and open to change requests
yet
Stays agile
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
6. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
What is Scrum?
But how?
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
7. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
What is Scrum?
There are a family of project management frameworks to deliver both flexibility
and agility, which are called:
Agile Frameworks
Scrum is the most common Agile framework.
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
8. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
We will be both flexible and agile, by following these:
Everyone should be aligned with the goal of the project.
Different functional departments with professionals who are doing their own
jobs and do not bother themselves with the whole project, will not do it for us.
Team should be self-organized.
The command-and-control system will not work in an agile environment.
We should continuously improve our process.
Otherwise, we would not be agile enough.
We should work inside time-boxes.
In order to stay focused and productive in an ever changing environment.
And many more things we will see together in this course…
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
9. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Part 2
Roles
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
10. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Defining other roles is forbidden!
Because it’s harmful to the unity of the team, and is not
compatible with the philosophy of Scrum.
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11. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Product Owner ScrumMaster Team
1 person 1 person Normally 3 to 9 people
Full-time or part-time Full-time or part-time Full-time (recommended)
Business oriented Scrum coach and problem solver Technical
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12. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Product Owner ScrumMaster Team
Product Owner:
• creates and maintains the list of deliverables (elements of the
final product which are presentable to the customer and have a
definition of “done”), aka Product Backlog.
• Maximizes the value of the team’s effort by keeping the backlog
up to date and prioritized.
• Effectively communicates with all stakeholders.
• Prevents problems by keeping the backlog clear, transparent,
realistic, and agreed upon.
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
13. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Product Owner ScrumMaster Team
ScrumMaster:
• Makes sure that Scrum is understood and implemented
correctly in the team.
• Coaches and leads product owner and the team, in
order to improve their productivity.
• Helps the team solve their problems.
• Directs scrum meetings.
• Keeps the team away from distractions.
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14. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Product Owner ScrumMaster Team
Team:
• Produces the final product in step by step
increments of the backlog, in a product-based
way.
• Is cross-functional and does the A to Z of each
backlog item.
• Is self-organized, and finds its way, instead of
receiving commands.
• Is aligned with the goal of the project.
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
15. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Product Owner ScrumMaster Team
Designer
Tester
Coder
Team Manager
Senior Developer
Team Leader
Etc.
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16. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Product Owner ScrumMaster Team
You’re not allowed to define any roles other than
the 3 previously described roles of Scrum.
Team members have the same roles and titles, to be reminded
that they are supposed to work together with the same goal in mind;
although they have different kinds of expertise.
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17. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Product Owner ScrumMaster Team
So, who is the project manager?
There’s not such a role in Scrum.
And none of the 3 roles of the Scrum act as a project manager.
What happens to project management, then?
There’s no central point for project management in Scrum. Project
management tasks are distributed among the 3 roles of Scrum.
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18. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
There are 3 roles in a Scrum project.
Now we’ll see what these people actually do…
TO SUCCEED!
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19. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Part 3
LifeCycle
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
20. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
[ Time-box ]
Time-box is an essential concept in Scrum.
Our solution to being focused and getting things done in an ever-changing environment.
It’s a period of time with a fixed duration, that repeats many times.
Its duration can be revised, but not changed frequently.
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21. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
[ Time-box ]
Main activities in a Scrum project:
• Creating and maintaining the backlog
• Sprint planning
• Sprint
• Sprint demo
• Sprint retrospective
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
22. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
[ Time-box ]
Main activities in a Scrum project:
• Creating and maintaining the backlog (ongoing, not time-boxed)
• Sprint planning
• Sprint
• Sprint demo
• Sprint retrospective
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
23. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
[ Time-box ]
Main activities in a Scrum project:
• Creating and maintaining the backlog (ongoing, not time-boxed)
• Sprint planning [Time-boxed]
• Sprint
• Sprint demo
• Sprint retrospective
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
24. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
[ Time-box ]
Main activities in a Scrum project:
• Creating and maintaining the backlog (ongoing, not time-boxed)
• Sprint planning [Time-boxed]
• Sprint [Time-boxed]
• Sprint demo
• Sprint retrospective
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
25. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
[ Time-box ]
Main activities in a Scrum project:
• Creating and maintaining the backlog (ongoing, not time-boxed)
• Sprint planning [Time-boxed]
• Sprint [Time-boxed]
• Sprint demo [Time-boxed]
• Sprint retrospective
Introduction Roles LifeCycle Tracking Rollup
26. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
[ Time-box ]
Main activities in a Scrum project:
• Creating and maintaining the backlog (ongoing, not time-boxed)
• Sprint planning [Time-boxed]
• Sprint [Time-boxed]
• Sprint demo [Time-boxed]
• Sprint retrospective [Time-boxed]
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27. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
1. Creating and maintaining product backlog Item 001
Item 002
• Product backlog is a list of project Item 003
deliverables. Item 004
• Creation and maintenance of the Item 005
product backlog is the responsibility Item 006
of product owner. Item 007
Item 008
Item 009
Item 010
●
●
●
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28. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
1. Creating and maintaining product backlog Item 001
Item 002
Product Owner / Deliverables
Item 003
Item 004
• You should decompose the final
Item 005
product into backlog items in a way
Item 006
that all of them are presentable for
Item 007
the non-technical customer. Item 008
• You’d better decompose the final Item 009
product as much as possible. Item 010
●
●
●
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29. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
1. Creating and maintaining product backlog Item 001
Item 002
Product Owner / Deliverables / Presentable /
Item 003
Decomposed Enough
Item 004
• Product backlog is never completed; Item 005
Item 006
it’s always being updated to reflect the
Item 007
actual events, requested changes, etc.
Item 008
Item 009
Item 010
●
●
●
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30. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
1. Creating and maintaining product backlog Item 001
Product Owner / Deliverables / Presentable / Item 002
Decomposed Enough / Never Completed Item 003
Item 004
• Team estimates the volume of each
Item 005
backlog item.
Item 006
Item 007
Item 008
Item 009
• While product owner makes sure that
●
items are clear and understood. ●
●
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31. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
1. Creating and maintaining product backlog
Item 002
Product Owner / Deliverables / Presentable / Item 001
Decomposed Enough / Never Completed / Volume
Item 004
/ Understood
Item 005
• Product owner continuously ranks Item 003
items based on business and technical Item 006
factors. Higher ranks mean higher ROI. Item 008
• Product owner sorts the backlog based
Item 007
Item 009
on the ranks.
●
●
●
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32. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
1. Creating and maintaining product backlog
Item 002
Here is
the Now that our near future is clearly Item 001
product reflected in the product backlog, let’s
Item 004
backlog start the work. We’ll improve and
complete the backlog all the way to
Item 005
the end of the project.
We are
Item 003
ready and
Item 006
waiting!
Item 008
Item 007
Item 009
●
●
●
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33. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
2. Sprint Planning
Item 002
Item 001
Now it’s time to plan Item 004
the first sprint.
Item 005
Item 003
Item 006
Item 008
Item 007
Item 009
●
●
●
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34. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
2. Sprint Planning
Item 002
• Sprint is the main time-box for Item 001
doing the work of the project. Item 004
• Sprint planning is a meeting Item 005
dedicated to choosing and
Item 003
clearing the work of the coming Item 006
sprint. Item 008
Item 007
Item 009
●
●
●
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35. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
2. Sprint Planning
Item 002
• You should fix the duration of Item 001
this time-box at the beginning Item 004
of the project. This time-box is Item 005
usually fixed between 4 and 8
Item 003
hours. Item 006
• All three scrum roles should Item 008
attend the meeting. Item 007
• Others may attend the meeting Item 009
too, but are not to speak. ●
●
●
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36. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
2. Sprint Planning
Item 002
We need these two important Item 001
outputs in this meeting: Item 004
Item 005
• The list of the items selected
Item 003
for the upcoming sprint, aka Item 006
Sprint Backlog. Item 008
• The Goal of the sprint. Item 007
Item 009
●
●
●
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37. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
2. Sprint Planning
Item 002
• Team had previously estimated the volume of each Item 001
item of the product backlog.
Item 004
• They also estimate their capacity for a sprint, and
keep revising it. Item 005
Item 003
Item 006
Item 008
Item 007
Item 009
●
●
●
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38. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
A schematic backlog
2. Sprint Planning
Item 002
Item 001
It’s how much we can Item 004
do in a sprint.
Item 005
Item 003
Item 006
Item 008
Item 007
Item 009
Estimated capacity
●
●
●
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56. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog Product Backlog
2. Sprint Planning
Item 002 Item 005
Freezed Item 001
Item 003
Item 006
What if someone Item 004 Item 008
forces us to change Item 007
the sprint backlog?
Item 009
Continuously revised Item 010
Item 011
Item 012
●
●
●
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57. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog Product Backlog
2. Sprint Planning
Item 002 Item 005
Freezed Item 001
Item 003
You should avoid Item 006
it, and report it to Item 004 Item 008
me, so I will explain
Item 007
them the reasons and
try to fix it forever. Item 009
Continuously revised Item 010
Item 011
Item 012
●
●
●
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Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog
3. Sprint
Item 002
Now that we’ve Item 001
finished planning the
sprint, we can start it. Item 004
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59. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog
3. Sprint
Item 002
Let’s focus on sprint Item 001
backlog and get
things done. Item 004
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60. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog
3. Sprint
Item 002
• Sprints are usually time-boxes of 2 to 4 weeks of
duration. Item 001
• They should all have the same length, but we are Item 004
free to revise the length, if it’s necessary.
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61. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog
3. Sprint
Item 002
• Team works on the sprint backlog items during the sprint.
• There should be a 15-minute time-boxed meeting each Item 001
day, named Daily Scrum. Item 004
• Daily scrum should have a predefined time and location.
Definition of its time and location is done in the sprint
planning.
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62. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog
3. Sprint
Item 002
• Daily scrum meeting is only for the team members and the
ScrumMaster. Others are free to attend, buy they should not Item 001
speak. Item 004
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63. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog
3. Sprint
Item 002
Each team member answers these three questions in
each daily scrum: Item 001
Item 004
• What did I do in the previous 24 hours.
• What will I do in the next 24 hours.
• What problems I might face.
ScrumMaster might follow on the mentioned
problems and try to solve them, if their resolution
is out of reach of team or they just need help.
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64. A Portrait of Scrum Project Management
Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog
3. Sprint
Item 002
The team is now working, day by day… for the whole
duration of the sprint (e.g. 2 weeks), trying to complete Item 001
all the sprint backlog items and reach the goal of the Item 004
sprint.
13
07
14
09
05
04
03
02
01
00
12
08
06
10
11
Days left
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Sprint Sprint Sprint
Sprint
Planning Demo Retrospective
Backlog creation and maintenance
Sprint Backlog
3. Sprint
Item 002
The sprint is finished. Not a single extra day is allowed.
Item 001
Item 004
00
Days left
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There are many different project management standards and methods. PMBOK Guide and PRINCE2 are two most important ones. These standards are usually called traditional methods. They are both designed for a traditional environment of a medium to large project, like building an entertainment complex, a hospital, or a railroad. As IT projects was introduced and popularized, people engaged in those projects realized that their environment is not completely compatible with those of the traditional projects. The most important difference is that IT projects are subject to extreme and frequent changes in scope.
We usually do not experience such changes in traditional projects. A project which is initiated to build a hospital might experience many changes, but will never become a theme park instead of a hospital! Its changes are limited. But we can expect an IT project to turn from a “hospital” to a “theme park”!
This degree of change is not common in traditional projects, and as a result, traditional methods are not as effective in IT projects as they are in traditional projects.We need new, and different methods for managing IT projects, to deliver us:Enough flexibility for changes. We are not willing to limit the changes, because in that case, the final product will not fit the needs of the customer and we would not be considered successful. We cannot sacrifice everything for this flexibility. We still need to be able to focus and get things done. We also need to be fast and return our investments. We call it “being Agile”
Ok, we like to be both flexible and agile, but how?
There are a number of new and modern project management methods, which are called Agile. These frameworks promise us to deliver both flexibility and agility. They are called… Agile Frameworks.The most famous and successful Agile framework is Scrum, which we’re going to discuss in this course.
We will discuss every aspect of Scrum. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at some of the essentials of this framework…Everyone should be aligned with the goal of the project. Most people in traditional environments are focused on their own responsibilities and even do not know the general approach, the strategies, the business case, and the big picture of the project. IT projects are more sensitive to this kind of behavior. We all need to be aligned with the goal of the project, no matter what kind of expertise we have. Team should be self organized. We’ll see that the management structure is much different in an agile framework. A traditional chain of command, which is used in large teams and traditional environments is not effective for IT projects. We need self-organized teams, which are able to do the whole work and manage themselves.We should continuously improve our process. We should believe that there’s always room for improvement, no matter how successful we are. If we don’t pay enough attention to it, we would lose lots of opportunities. [it’s a good time to play the ball game]We should work inside time-boxes. Everything is changing in our projects. This has a potential of chaos, which we should avoid. The best practice for avoiding chaos is using time-boxes. Time-boxes help us focus on the work in hand and get things done. … and many more things. We’ll discuss them all in this course…
We’ll start by introducing scrum roles. When we understand the basics, we would be able to learn the lifecycle. The roles themselves would be more clear when we learn the lifecycle. There are three and only three roles in scrum. Defining other roles is forbidden! Absolutely forbidden. The Scrum environment is built on a set of concepts and philosophies, and some of them are not compatible with having more roles. For example, we need united teams, in order to stay agile. If we define other roles and titles for the people inside a team, their unity will decrease.
Are here are the three roles…The product owner…Thescrummaster…… and the team.Product owner is a single person, working full-time or part-time in the project. Product owner is a business oriented member of the contractor, responsible for connecting the team to the client. Scrummaster is also a single person, working full-time or part-time in the project. Scrummaster is a scrum professional, who continuously helps team members to understand and implement the scrum, and tries to resolve their problems. And finally, everyone else are considered “team member”. As we’ve mentioned earlier, they do not have any other titles or roles. They are normally 3 to 9 people, and it’s recommended for them to work full-time on a single project, to stay focused. They are technical people who do the work of the project.
Now let’s get a closer look to these roles. We start by product owner. We should have a list of deliverables of the project, which is called product backlog. This list is our main planning tool in scrum. This list needs to be aligned with the ever-changing needs of the client. Creating and maintaining this list is the main responsibility of the project owner. Product backlog should also be prioritized, in way that maximizes our return on investment. This is also the responsibility of the product owner, and its success is depended on his or her knowledge of the business and financial matters. We need effective communication with the customer on the one hand, and need to constraint it in order to avoid distractions on the other hand. The solution is having a contact point in the project. Product owner is that contact point between project team and the customer. He or she should spend enough time communicating with the customer, realize their needs for future deliverables, and receive their feedback on previously produced ones. A good performing product owner minimizes reworks and maximizes customer satisfaction. And last, but not least, is preventing problems caused by misunderstandings. A great number of misunderstandings are because of poor definition of the project. The key to solve these kinds of problems is in hands of the product owner.
The ScrumMaster…Scrummaster is a Scrum professional, who makes sure that project team understands and implements scrum completely. He coaches and leads everyone, but is not a trainer. He also tries to find and solve some of the problems occurred during the project, which deal with outside parties. We have a number of meetings in scrum, and we are very serious about them. Scrummaster is the manager of the meetings, and makes sure that people attend meetings in time, and only talk about predefined matters of each meeting.Another important matter is keeping team away from distractions. Distractions are usually because of not following scrum rules, and as a result, scrummaster is also responsible for keeping them away from distractions.
Team is a set of technical people involved in producing the final product of the project through incremental steps of presentable and understandable deliverables. They should always work product-based, and focus on the results, instead of the work. They are cross-functional, and have all the expertise and competencies needed for the project. We should have definition of done for each project, and team should be able to realize that definition with doing the A to Z of each deliverable.Team is self-organized. It’s not the final part of a command chain. It finds its own way through the project, takes responsibility for their actions, and in other words, manages itself. Previously mentioned points is not possible, unless all team members are completly understand and be aligned with the goal of the project.
You may be used to have many different titles and roles in each project…But we are not allowed to have such additional roles in scrum.
It’s obvious that team members are not the same, and might have different kinds of expertise. But we don’t have to have roles for each expertise. They should always be reminded that they are united and each person is responsible for the whole project.
You might asked yourself before… who’s the project manager in scrum?The answer is simple: we don’t have a project manager role in scrum. Some people consider the scrummaster to be project manager… but that’s not the case. Neither of the scrum roles are project manager, or even similar enough to a project manager. So, what about project management? Does it mean that we don’t need project management in scrum? Of course not; any project needs project management. The thing is that we are used to have a separate role for project management in traditional methods, but scrum is different. We do have all the project management tasks in scrum project, but it’s not focused in a single role, but is distributed among all three roles. Some of the project management tasks are done by the product owner, some of them by the scrummaster, and a large number of them by the team! Yes, the team is both responsible for doing the work of the project and doing some of the management activities regarding that work.
That’s it. we’ve reviewed the scrum roles, and are ready to start studying the lifecycle. The scrum lifecycle is the solution in which we get things done and become successful in an ever-changing environment of IT projects.
What you see at the top of the screen is the lifecycle we’re going to discuss in detail. Before that, let’s have a look at this important concept of Time-Box.Time-box is a fixed duration of time, used to work on a predefined number of tasks. This is used for producing the final product, and also for managing meetings. We can revise the duration of each time-box, if needed. But we should stick to the duration and do not change it each time, based on the situation. Time-box is an essential concept in scrum.
We have these main activities in scrum:
Creating and maintaining the product backlog, which is the list of presentable deliverables of the project. Do you remember who’s responsible for this? That’s product owner. This activity is on-going. Product owner is always maintaining the backlog, by communicating with client, prioritizing the items, etc.
The other activity is sprint planning. This is a meetings used to select backlog items for the up-coming work time-box, which is called sprint. Sprint planning is usually 4 to 8 hours, and is considered to be time-boxed. You set the duration at the beginning of the project, and stick to it.
Sprint is a time-box with a duration of two to four weeks. Team members focus on sprint backlog items in this period and try to finish all of them. Sprint backlog is a set of deliverables selected from the product backlog at sprint planning.
When sprint time is up, we’ll have a time-boxed meeting called sprint demo. We present the outcome of the sprint to the client and receive its feedback. These feedbacks are reflected in product backlog.
Before finishing the cycle, we will have another meeting named sprint retrospective. We’ll review the previous sprint and discuss its positive and negative events, trying to improve the process. Our strategy is that each sprint should be better than the previous one.
Now we will review each of the five activities of a scrum cycle. We’ll start it by reviewing the only non-time-boxed activity: creating and maintaining product backlog. Product backlog is a list of project deliverables. This items are shown schematically in the right figure. Product owner is the main responsible role for this concept.
We should decompose the final product into small deliverables. These deliverable should be small enough to be manageable. They should be decomposed in away that are presentable to the client. We should have in mind that client is not necessarily technical and it might not be able to understand all of our tasks… the technical tasks. There’s always different ways of decomposing each product, and it’s possible to decompose it in a way that all of its elements are presentable for a non-technical person; that what we should do. Step by step and continues delivery of the product is crucial to our success; because each time we deliver an element, the client would become sure of our performance and would be able to better realize its requirements and ask for changes. The sooner the client change something, the easier it would be to realize that change. One other thing we should be aware of, is that the more we decompose our product, the easier it would be to manage it. it’s not always easy to decompose too much, without making elements un-presentable, but it’s an art that we should get perfect at. And don’t worry, it’s possible, and is practicing in many projects right now.
And finally, one reason we are using scrum is to be flexible for changes. It’s not possible if we stop revising the backlog. So, we should always have this in mind that the product backlog should always be updated, revised, checked, etc…
All backlog items are not the same. Some of them might be small, and some other large. We should have an estimation of the volume of work needed for each backlog item, and this would be used in our planning. Product owner does not estimate the items, because he or she is not technical-oriented. We should ask team members, who are responsible to do that job, to estimate its volume. Meanwhile, product owner should make sure that everyone has understood the real meaning of each item. Misunderstandings are expensive, and we should avoid them.
Product backlog is supposed to be sorted. Higher items in backlog are more important and should be done sooner. There might be different factors involved in ranking and sorting the elements. One common factor is ROI, or return on investment, because we prefer to maximize our benefits. Product owner decides which factors to use, and use them in a daily basis.
When the first version of the backlog is ready, we can start the first cycle. We don’t need to wait and plan the whole product in detail; having the first draft of the backlog is enough to start the work, as long as it shows the near future clearly.
We start the cycle by the second activity, sprint planning.
Sprint planning is a time-boxeused to choosing a number of items from the top of the backlog, to be done in the upcoming sprint.
This time-box is usually between 4 and 8 hours, but it’s not recommended to be more than one working day. Six hours is usually enough for most projects.All of the three roles of the scrum should attend this meeting. Others can also attend, but they should remain silent. So, what if an outsider speaks?This is against the scrum rules and is a distraction; so, scrummaster has to stop the outsider from speaking, asking him or her to leave if needed, and take it to higher manager for resolution if needed.
Two important things we should decide on in this meeting are…The list of the items from product backlog, which we are going to do in the upcoming sprint. This would be called sprint backlog. The other thing is the goal of the sprint. The goal of the sprint is a focal point used to align work with high level strategies. Some sample goals are maximizing the income, making the customer trust us, creating a very high quality output, preparing an amazing output, etc.
In order to select sprint items, we need to have the estimation of the volume of each item in the sorted product backlog on the one hand, and an estimation of our capacity of work in each sprint on the other hand. Having these, we can select appropriate number of items from the top of the product backlog.
Team itself determines its capacity, and keeps revising it in each sprint planning meeting. This estimation should be realistic.
We then compare the capacity with the product backlog…
and move items to the sprint backlog.
This would be our target for the upcoming sprint.
Product backlog should be revised all the time…
But, sprint backlog is freezed after the sprint planning.
That’s neccesary for work. Otherwise, no one would be able to focus on the task in hand and get thing done.
Product owners might like to change the sprint backlog…
But it’s not allowed.
But sometimes, the changes are so dramatic, that completing the sprint backlog items no longer make any sense.
In this case, product owner has the authority to cancel the whole sprint. The sprint backlog items will be returned to the product backlog, necessary changes will be made, and a new cycle will start afterwards.
But this simple rule should be followed anyway: the sprint backlog should not change!
Sometimes executives interfere in the project, asking team members to change sprint backlog items.
Team members should not accept these requests, and they should report it to the scrummaster if they could not handle it themselves.
When sprint planning is finished, we are ready to start the third activity, which is also time-boxed: the sprint.
We agree on the duration of the sprint at the beginning of the project. This is usually between two and four weeks. We should stick to this duration, no matter what the situation is. For example, we cannot increase the duration if there are lots of items to be delivered in near future. However, if we came to the conclusion that the defined duration is too long or too short in general, then we can revise it.
Now the team works on its items through the sprint, trying to complete all of them, based on the definition of done. No one is allowed to interrupt or distract them, and nothing changes in the sprint backlog. It’s only the responsibility of the team itself to manage its work and find solutions. There should be one meeting per day. This meeting is called daily scrum, and is usually done at the beginning of each day. Time and location of this meeting should be constant through the sprint, and is set at the sprint planning. This meeting is also a time-box, fixed at 15 minutes.
This meeting is for team members, and scrummaster. Even the product owner does not have to attend it. we should keep the meeting as planned, so, if others are attending the meeting, they will not be allowed to speak. Attendance of others in the meeting is allowed, because they might be able to collect lessons learned.
We should divide the 15 minute among team members, and each of them should answer these three questions…Team is responsible for solving its internal and technical day to day problems, but when it comes to external and non-technical problems, it would be the responsibility of the ScrumMaster. ScrumMaster takes notes through the meeting and tries to solve them afterwards.
Ok… the work goes on through the sprint… with maximum focus possible…
When the duration of sprint passes, no extra time would be allowed. It’s like an exam… hands up, time is over!