Agile Methodology: Scrum Perspective

Scrum is one of the agile project management methods and an approach where stakeholders can address complex adaptive problems while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.

Scrum is not a process, technique or definitive method and deliberately incomplete, it only defines the necessary parts. It is a framework in which you can incorporate and use various processes and techniques. Scrum clarifies the relative status of your product management and working techniques, thus aiming to continually improve the product, team, and work environment.

Scrum proposes scheduled iterations or sprints that determine what features a project team will complete. At the start of a project, the team creates a product backlog that lists all required features in order of importance. During each sprint, the team selects tasks to be completed from this list during a planning meeting before starting the sprint. Stakeholders also meet each day in short 15-minute meetings and update each other on current progress. The Scrum team consists of the Scrum Master, Product Owner and the Developers. Its not contain a sub-team and hierarchical structure.Each point within the scrum framework serves a purpose and its consistent use is essential for scrum success.

Scrum Values:

According to 2020 Scrum guide, “Successful use of Scrum depends on people becoming more proficient in living these five values.”

1. Commitment > Committed to supporting each other within the team and its goals.
2. Focus > Focus best on sprint work to advance their goals.
3. Openness > Scrum Team and its stakeholders are transparent about the current situations and workflow. They ensure a healthy flow of information.
4. Respect > Respect each other and their abilities.
5. Courage > Have the ability to take courage in challenges to move forward in the right way.

Scrum Rolles:

There are three roles in scrum.

Scrum Rolles

1. Scrum Master

• Should be descriptive and directive against the definition of data to the Scrum team.
• Removes the obstacles within the team and is solution-oriented.
• Problem solver, focuser and facilitator mentor in the advancement of the Scrum team.
• Helpful and guiding for teammates to be more productive.
• Master of Agile and Scrum concepts and their application.
• Plans the Scrum practices within the organization. It ensures that the planned activities are realized, productive and kept in time management.

2. Product Owner

• Responsible for the product list and allows the development team to work on the most important and priority items.
• Good communicator.
• Visionary.
• Identifying and clearly communicating the product target
• Transparent and clear creation and clear communication of Product Backlog items.

3. Developers

• To instill quality and progress by adhering to the definition of finished within the sprint
• The team includes people with one or more skills.
• Adjusting their plans to the Sprint Goal each day
• The self-organized team knows how to do their job with minimal external input.
• They have all the skills needed to turn their product backlog into functional software.

Scrum Artifacts:

Scrum Board

1. Product Backlog:

• It is an ordered to-do list with requirements for developing products.
• It should be arranged in order of priority from top to bottom.
• To improve the product backlog; it is the act of separating elements into smaller and more transparent, clear elements and defining them in more detail.
• Each backlog item has a title, description, sequence, and prediction as attributes.
• Each backlog item should have a descriptive title and transparency.
• They are documents that continue to change and evolve.
• The product backlog contains item types such as user stories, requirements, improvements, bugs, ideas.
• The Product Owner should work with other stakeholders to keep the Product backlog clean.

2. Sprint Backlog:

• Scrum teams work in short iterations called sprints.
• For each sprint, the development team selects implementation items in the current sprint with the product owner in the sprint planning meeting.
• The selected items are the development team’s plan and the sprint backlog in a short iteration time.

3. Increment:

• It is the working product produced by the scrum team at the end of each sprint.
• This software that is meaningful and functional for the user is called “Increment”.
• After the sprint, the product should be usable and fit the Scrum team’s definition of ‘Done’.

4.Definition of Done:

• For product to meet the definition of done, it must meet the essential quality and requirement criteria.
• The definition of done provides transparency about what the product part is and a common output definition.
• The Scrum team should proceed in accordance with definition of done to the product parts, and if there is more than one team working on the product, a reciprocal ‘definition of done’ should be provided.

Scrum Events:

Scrum teams build their products iteratively and incrementally, often completing cycles by progressing in sprints of 2–4 weeks.
According to the decision of the Scrum team, this period can be made for 1 week.

• ‘Sprint’ is defined as the container of Scrum events.
• Each sprint begins with an event called Sprint Planning. It culminates in the Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective events.
• Stakeholders continue to update and synchronize their work daily in a daily event called the Daily Scrum.
• The scrum team keeps repeating the iterative cycle called sprints until they create the targeted product.
• Each sprint should have a maximum duration of 30 days or less. Most teams prefer two or three week sprints.
• Every sprint should end with a potentially deliverable product boost.
• The sprint cancellation authority is only with the Product Owner and can be canceled once the sprint goal has expired.

1. Sprint Planning:

• The Sprint Planning meeting, which is held with the participation of all stakeholders, starts the sprint with the arrangement and inclusion of the work to be done.
• The development team together with the product owner selects the items to be included in the sprint from the product backlog.
• The sprint planning meeting addresses 3 issues;
  1) Why is this Sprint valuable?
  2) What Can We Do This Sprint?
  3) How will we do the selected jobs?
• How the items included in the sprint will be made is planned by the development team and how they are done is entirely at the discretion of the Developers.
• Limited to 8 hours for a 30-day sprint. Lower time limits can be set for shorter sprints.
• The sprint backlog is a subset of the backlog and includes the development team’s task and their plans.

2. Daily Scrum:

• Daily activity to synchronize development team work.
• It is limited to 15 minutes and must be done at the same place, at the same time.
• Development team members participate. Product Owner and Scrum Master participation is not mandatory.
• Talk about progress towards the sprint goal.
• For identified obstacles, brainstorming can be done after the meeting to come up with potential solutions.
• According to the 2017 Scrum Guide, the three question formats are in the daily scrum
  ( — What have I done since the last daily scrum?
  — What am I planning to do today?
  — Is there any situation or problem that is blocking me?
  ) is optional. These items have been simplified in the 2020 Scrum guide, emphasizing that the desired techniques can be selected as long as they focus on progress towards the sprint goal and produce planning for the next day.

3. Backlog Refinement (Grooming):

• The product owner and the development team are necessary participants.
• It can be carried out as a single event or as a series of events.
• The purpose of grooming is to keep backlog items detailed and ready for future sprints.For instance;
  - Adding details to product backlog items
  - Clarification of requirements
  - Revision of priorities
  - Adding or removing items from the backlog
  - Arrangements such as item separation and estimation can be made.
• An effective backlog refinement; it helps sprint and sprint planning in general to run more smoothly and in a planned way.

4. Sprint Review:

• It is an event where the Scrum team and external stakeholders meet to discuss two main issues.

1. Where are we in the progress towards improving products?
2. Where do we go from here? (Plan, decision of what to do next)

• Limited to 4 hours for a 30-day sprint. It is usually shorter for shorter duration sprints.
• It is the only sprint event in which people from outside the Scrum team, that is, external stakeholders, participate.

5. Sprint Retrospective:

• The purpose of the retrospective meeting is to seek and plan ways to improve quality.
• Scrum members are required to attend, and anything other than product growth and backlog can be reviewed as a topic.
• Areas for improvement and bad assumptions are identified and their causes are investigated.
• The Scrum team discusses three things:
  - What are the good things?
  - What problems were encountered?
  - How to solve these problems?
• It is limited to 3 hours for a 30-day sprint, usually shorter for shorter sprints, and sprint ends with the retrospective meeting.
• It is an evaluative meeting for the team (especially the Scrum Master).

REFERENCES:

The Scrum Guide

Jan Betta, Agnieszka Skomra TEACHING SCRUM METHODOLOGY FOR PROJECT OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT (2019)