Scrum Ceremonies/ Events

MunnaPraWiN
Tilicho Labs
Published in
6 min readFeb 28, 2020

Scrum ceremonies are the key moments in Software Development process. In recent days Scrum ceremonies also referred to meetings or events. They all mean the same thing. Scrum ceremonies are a great way to move fast and change quickly as needed when working on a project. It is important to note that these ceremonies are specific to the scrum framework.

Scrum ceremonies are structured meetings designed to organize the work of a sprint and to inspect and adapt the product increment in development — from sprint grooming, planning, through each daily Scrum, to signing off the increment in sprint review. There’s often a lot of confusion about who participates, when these ceremonies are conducted, how long each can take, the purpose of the ceremony, and more.

There are 5 ceremonies of Scrum (four of them are standard and the backlog refinement is considered as additional — aimed to reduce current impediments). All the meetings ensure that everyone in the team (a Scrum Master, Product Owner, and developers) is in-sync.

Sprint Grooming

While backlog refinement (also called grooming) was not originally a formal meeting in the Scrum framework, Ken Schwaber, who founded Scrum, advises teams to dedicate five percent of every sprint to this activity. As with Scrum’s other meetings, the grooming should take place at the same time and place and for the same duration each sprint.

Grooming (or refinement) is a meeting of the Scrum team in which the product backlog items are discussed and the next sprint planning is prepared. Product grooming is critical in product management because it means keeping the backlog up to date and getting backlog items ready for upcoming sprints.Everyone attends the backlog refinement meeting: the team, the Product Owner, and the ScrumMaster. During the meeting, everyone helps prepare the Product Backlog for the sprint planning meeting. This usually includes adding new stories and epics, extracting stories from existing epics, and estimating effort for existing stories.

Why is this helpful? Because a groomed backlog will help streamline sprint planning meetings; otherwise, they can stretch on for hours. When product backlog items contain clearly defined acceptance criteria and are estimated by the team members, the planning process does not have to be tense or overly long.

Goal of sprint grooming: sprint grooming helps the team to review the backlog items, discuss and plan for the next sprint.

Who does sprint planning: Developers, QA, Design team, Product Owner, Scrum Master

Outcome of sprint planning: that everyone get a idea on backlog items with clearly defined acceptance criteria and estimates provided by the team members.

Sprint Planning

Everything starts with planning. This is the time when the team meets and decides what they need to complete in the coming sprint. The planning, of course, is prior to the sprint. It typically lasts for an hour or two.

During this meeting, the Scrum team and product owner negotiate user stories and other items of a product backlog. The team will attempt to deliver them at the end of the sprint. The product owner focuses on the most important items that will empower business and generate the most return on investment. It’s crucial for the team to determine its capacity throughout the negotiating process in sprint planning. They estimate the number of story points to attribute to a backlog item that will help to define the relative amount of effort to complete every backlog item.

Goal of sprint planning: sprint planning helps the team prepare for what work is coming up next. The team discusses each item of work which has been prioritised by the Product Owner.

Who does sprint planning: Developers, QA, Product Owner, Scrum Master

Outcome of sprint planning: that everyone knows what the sprint goal is and how they are going to achieve it. Make sure everyone understands what’s the overall vision or objective of the work.

Breaking up work into small chunks is a key component of Scrum. If implementing a particular feature requires more than 2 weeks, you need to break it up into smaller features before you can start on it . Some sprint planning ceremonies will flesh out details of each user story. This will make sure that everyone involved understands the scope of the work.

Daily Scrum/ Stand-up

The next ceremony, Daily Scrum, occurs on every day of the sprint when there isn’t another ceremony. It’s timeboxed at 15 minutes, during which the team comes up with a plan for the next 24 hours.

Daily Scrum includes all the teams, who run the meeting, and the Scrum master. A product owner may attend if helpful. If they don’t, the Scrum master should keep them informed of any major adjustments that might impact the sprint.

Goal of the stand up: a brief check-in where the team can raise issues or communicate with the whole team face to face.

Who joins the daily stand up: Developers, QA, Design team, Product Owner, Scrum Master

Outcome of daily stand up: the team raises any blockers, but doesn’t have to solve them. Ensure each team member is clear about what they are working on.

The detailed status meeting is rather light and fun, but also quite informative. It consists of every person speaking and answering the following questions:

  • What did I accomplish yesterday?
  • What will I do today?
  • Am I blocked by something?

Sprint Review

At the end of the sprint, the Scrum team holds sprint review. The purpose of sprint review is to inspect the newly created product increment and adapt the product backlog as necessary. After the sprint has been completed, it’s time to get the team together to demo or showcase their work.

Each team member reviews the newly developed features or whatever it was that they worked on during the sprint. This provides a space for the team to congratulate themselves on a successful sprint, which is important for morale.

It also demonstrates the finished work for the entire team, so they can provide feedback and also get feedback from the stakeholders in the project. These demos are not partial but a full review of the work. If not, then the point of the sprint review is diminished. The reviews must meet the quality level set up by the team or they’re not considered complete and shouldn’t be demoed in the sprint review.

Goal of the sprint review: showcase the work completed and receive feedback from the Product Owner and relevant stakeholders.

Who joins the sprint review: Executive Sponsors, Developers, QA, Design team, Product Owner, Scrum Master

Outcome of the sprint review: each team member feels empowered by showcasing their work to the team. The team can celebrate their achievements. Executive team can ask questions. Product owner can provide feedback and check the work is of high quality and satisfies the user story. Works best with drinks and cake.

Sprint retrospective

After sprint review, but before the next sprint, the team holds the final scrum ceremony: the sprint retrospective, also known as the agile retrospective. Just as the sprint review offers a moment for the team to inspect and adapt the product it’s making, the sprint retrospective is a space for the team to reflect on its process.

The purpose of a sprint retrospective is to improve team processes. Every member of the Scrum team should be given space to:

  • Talk about the efficacy of the relationships, processes, and tools the team used to complete the work of the sprint.
  • Discuss what worked well and what did not.
  • Come up with a plan for the next sprint that capitalizes on pros and addresses cons.

Goal of the retrospective: honest discussion about what worked well and didn’t work well. Encourage self-improvement and transparency.

Who joins the retrospective: Developers, QA, Design team, Product Owner, Scrum Master

Outcome of a retrospective: receive feedback from the team and seek to improve in the following sprint. The beauty of agile and Scrum is the fast feedback loop.

  • Outcome of a retrospective: receive feedback from the team and seek to improve in the following sprint. The beauty of agile and Scrum is the fast feedback loop.

Scrum ceremonies to be embedded in the process create a cadence in which the team can maximize their productivity, promote collaboration, maintain transparency, and most importantly, inspect and adapt on the way they go, so that they can continuously learn and improve from each other.

Professionals just have to make sure they choose the right work… and within the right time frame. Performing the rituals regularly will help with that. Understanding the principles is not very difficult, learning to do it requires not only the right people but also the right training.

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