SCRUM BASICS
What is Scrum?
The roles, events, and artifacts explained
Scrum is everywhere. From software development to the space tech industry like SpaceX. It is an Agile framework that provides minimum game rules to organize and deliver complex work in changing conditions.
Scrum is one of the most popular frameworks to organize work followed by thousands of teams all over the world.
What is complex work?
Complex work is when more is unknown than known. Unlike a classic assembly line, in software development, we cannot predict the outcome and we don’t have one simple recipe to follow.
That is why waterfall methodologies don’t go so well with software development. Before Scrum and the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, waterfall was the only way to produce anything. You got only one chance to make it right. And what if the customers hated it?
Today’s software industry and even car factories like Tesla are different. They need to respond quickly to changing market conditions. Check if what they planned will provide value for their end-users and if they will be willing to buy it. And if not, pivot quickly. Scrum enables it through its iterative approach by working in short cycles, and reviewing constantly if we are going in the right direction.
How does Scrum help us with complex work?
Since we don’t have one recipe that fits all, we need to do small experiments and see if they work out. We plan, we develop, we review, we implement the feedback and start again. And all of this in those small Sprint cycles that can take a maximum of one month.
Three pillars of Scrum
It is based on three pillars: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. All of them underlined by empiricism. What the team learns after each Sprint they use as an input for the next one. Moreover, they are transparent at all times about what they do.
What is Scrum?
Scrum is a lightweight framework that follows Agile values and principles.
In 2020 Scrum celebrates its 25th anniversary. It is defined in the Scrum Guide and its last update was in 2017. And Ken Schwaber one of the founders of Scrum already announced a new updated version coming up this year. Looking forward to it!
Three Roles
There are three roles in Scrum who form the Scrum Team:
- Product Owner — maximizes the product value and is responsible for organizing the Product Backlog.
- Development Team — develops and delivers the product or service.
- Scrum Master — ensures everybody makes the most of the Scrum framework.
Scrum Events
Scrum also defines the meetings that are called Scrum Events:
- Sprint — is the core event of Scrum, it is the short working cycle I mentioned before. During the Sprint the development team performs the work to deliver a product or service. A Sprint can last up to one month, typically though it would last two weeks. When one Sprint ends, the next one starts immediately afterward. They have a consistent duration to provide predictability and reduce complexity. This helps the teams create their routine.
- Sprint Planning — during Sprint Planning the Scrum Team defines which Product Backlog Items to choose for the upcoming Sprint. This way they become the Sprint Backlog. At the end of the meeting, the whole Scrum Team defines the Sprint Goal. I explain what it has to do with the dopamine in my video.
Daily Scrum — during the Sprint the team meets daily. They inspect the work done towards the Sprint Goal and plan the work for a day. They check if there are any impediments preventing them from accomplishing their goal. You can learn more about the Daily Scrum and its anti-patterns here: What a Daily Scrum is NOT.
- Sprint Review — occurs at the end of the Sprint. It’s an opportunity for the Scrum Team to talk to the stakeholders about the product done in the Sprint. The team presents the increment so the stakeholders can use it. And they gather feedback. One of my favorite articles written about this event is The Liberator’s Myth: The Sprint Review is a Demo.
Sprint Retrospective — after the Sprint Review the Sprint is over. The team delivered a releasable product. Before they move on to the Sprint Planning and start the next Sprint, the team takes time to reflect on how it went. They inspect their processes and collaboration and select improvements for the following Sprint. The retrospective serves as a team-building exercise. The team expresses their feelings and thoughts about what happened in the last Sprint. You can watch more about it in my video about Agile Retrospectives.
Scrum Artifacts
Three artifacts represent an evolution of a Product Backlog Items in Scrum.
Product Backlog
We start with the Product Backlog, which is a list of everything we would like to do with our product. A list of Product Backlog Items (PBIs) that can have different forms, most common are the User Stories and Bugs. You can learn more about the Product Backlog and its refinement in my video about Refining the Refinement.
Sprint Backlog
During the Sprint Planning, the Scrum Team chooses the Product Backlog Items for the upcoming Sprint and they become Sprint Backlog. The ownership of Sprint Backlog belongs to the Development Team. It means that any changes that the PO might want to make in the Sprint must be agreed upon and negotiated with the Development Team first.
The Increment
At the end of the Sprint, the Development Team creates a working product called the Increment. It can be a new product or an update to the existing one.
To summarize
Dealing with a complex environment is like dealing with changing weather conditions. We have a forecast for tomorrow but only when tomorrow ends can we be sure how accurate it was.
Scrum helps us handle the weather forecast. Instead of pretending that we can predict the weather for the following year or even month, we focus on short cycles and adapt to changing conditions.
The three pillars of Scrum: transparency, inspection, and adaptation along with five Scrum Values guide the teams in their interaction and foster their self-organization.
Scrum helps the teams deliver the right thing by helping the different roles collaborate throughout the whole Sprint. The Product Owner maximizes product value. The Development Team gets things done. And the Scrum Master makes sure everybody understands Scrum and empowers the team.
Useful links:
- What is Agile?
- Perfect Daily Scrum
- What a Daily Scrum is NOT
- Sprint Planning and Dopamine
- Serious Scrum article about Sprint Goals by Maarten Dalmijn
- The Liberator’s Myth: Sprint Review is a Demo by Christiaan Verwijs
- Sprint Retrospective
- Refining the Refinement
- Serious Scrum article about Product Owner by David Pereira
- Serious Scrum article about Scrum Master by Willem-Jan Ageling
