Agile (Scrum Framework) in 10 minutes

Synopsis: A quick overview of:

• Agile Manifesto and Scrum Framework
• Roles in Scrum, Standard Terms and Acronyms
• Step by Step process from project planning to execution modes.
• Artifacts: Product Backlog, Release Plan and Sprint Backlog
• Estimation methods: Relative (user story points) and Actual (hours).
• Planning and Executing: Velocity, SPRINT Planning and SPRINT.
• Monitoring; Daily Scrum and Burndown chart
• Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective; Deliverable and Lesson learning

Glossary:

1. Agile Manifesto: It is a set of methods and practices based on the values and principles, to drive your project(s). It emphasizes on business value and close collaboration between teams.
2. Scrum Framework:  It is a framework derived in-alignment with Agile Manifesto and built with the purpose of managing software projects development. It is not a process, technique, or definitive method and rather a framework, within which you can employ various processes and techniques.
3. Theme: is a TEXT representing abstract, vague or high level information. For example, Signup, Search products, Place an order etc.
4. Roadmap: is a high level scheduling chart for placing themes in an order by VALUE, a guide to the Release Plan and can be updated throughout the project life cycle.
5. Epic: is a large user story that cannot be delivered as defined within a single iteration or is large enough that it can be split into smaller User Stories.
6. User Stories: Replaces the traditional Product Perspective approach of writing requirement with the approach of writing requirement from User Perspective.
7. Story Points (Relative Estimates): To classify user stories based on complexity nature, points are assigned rather than ideal hours to each user story using the fibonacci sequence – 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on. Teams use this sequence, rather than a linear 1 – 10 as it forces them to provide a relative estimate and it also helps differentiating between 1: super simple, 2: simple, 3: moderate, 5: complex, 8: highly complex and so on.
8. Idea Hours Estimation: is efforts in hours, for each of the Tasks and Subtasks involved in achieving a user story (this is optional to chose by scrum teams over relative estimates in phase 2 of Sprint planning).
9. Roles in Agile and Scrum: Key Sponsors, Partners/Executives (Business Owners), Product Owner, Scrum Master, Subject-matter Experts (SPOCs / Technical Team Leads) and Team Members (designers and developers).
10. Daily Scrum: It is a short (usually limited to 15 minutes) discussion where the team coordinates it’s activities for the following day and highlight impediments to resolve.
11. Sprint Review: At the end of the Sprint, the entire team (including product owner) reviews the results of the sprint with stakeholders of the product. At the end review (if required) goes back into the product backlog for future considerations.
12. Artifacts: Product Backlog (PB) and Sprint Backlog (SB). Where release plan is an interim between PB and SB.
13. Standard Acronyms:

• FEEDBACK - To follow 8 standard approaches for decomposing the larger user stories / epics.
• INVEST - To follow while writing user stories focusing its functional nature and expected input from customers.

Step by Step Guide:

Step 1 - Product Vision, Themes and Roadmap:

Inputs and Processes:

Vision: An idea triggers a vision, which is required to mature with group discussion mainly with Executives and Sponsors. It serves to define the problem statement and purpose of project.

Themes: A broad group of features only, for example, Create Profile, Browse Items, Receive Payment, Make Delivery and Receive Feedback. Without considering the ORDER BY VALUE factor these are just outlined. Due to it's abstract and vague nature, these are frequently referred as EPICs in Scrum.

Roadmap: It refers to organizing themes in a scheduled frame For example the considered themes above would be mapped like: Jan - Feb: Create Profile, Feb - Mar: Browse Items, Apr-May: Order Items, May - June: Make Delivery, June-July: Receive Feedback...

Output: As a result, project charter can be made to record Vision, Mission and Success Criteria of the project (not functional criteria). Example, getting 10,000 sign ups in the first 4 months of launch. Along with that Roadmap is helpful to denote business priorities at high level (it tends to get change as per market needs).

Step 2 - Product Backlog: It's a living document which hosts all features/requirements, EPICs and User Stories. It adds second level of details to product vision, themes and roadmap. In Product Backlog, updating and grooming are the 2 key operations, which happens repeatedly throughout the project life cycle and given below:

Inputs and Processes:

Phase 1: A 4-8 hours session is organized by product owner for all of the cross-functional teams ( from technical team(s); subject matter experts only) and begin sharing and updating the EPICs. Involving all stakeholders from the beginning leads to include their inputs so none of the important business and technical aspect may get ignored.

Phase 2: Product Backlog grooming session is conducted, where following activities are performed:

• Add more details of user stories and/or break existing user stories into smaller ones.
• Relative Estimates are collected from subject-matter experts.
• Input Acceptance Criteria (AC) for users stories.
• Group user stories into groups refer to as an EPIC.
• Assign priorities to rank the order aligned with business value based prioritization approach. 

Output: Product owner may able to present validated details to Scrum Master which in return helpful for technical team understanding the requirement more clearly and there is a subset of user stories, the basis of Sprint Planning sessions / ceremonies.

Step 3 - Release Plan: Considering the Order By Value factor. User Stories (must have Story Points i.e. Relative Estimates) are prioritized and highlighted in the Product Backlog, which yields a delivery schedule and that's simply denote the Release Plan (a subset of product backlog.

Note: It must be aligned with Roadmap and act as a bridge between Roadmap and SPRINTS (ITERATIONS) by providing base information for the Sprint Planning.

Step 4 - Sprint Planning and Sprint Backlog: Product Backlog ranked/prioritized user stories as per the Release Plan are shared with the development team in a session / ceremony called as Sprint Planning commonly divided into 2 phases:

Inputs and Processes

Phase 1: Where, Product Owner, Scrum Master and development team provides work closely to revise/finalize the Story Points (Relative Estimates) in the release plan (if required). Considering team already knows the SPRINT size (2-4 weeks) and Velocity (capacity to produce user story points; Relative Estimation) in order to make clear to Product Owner how much of his expectations can be met.

Phase 2: Where, Scrum Master and development team work closely to carry on the outcome of phase 1 above and perform following:

• Technical tasks and/or sub-tasks are outlined to each user story and
• Actual Estimates (hours) are assigned to the tasks and subtasks).

Output: As a result Sprint Backlog is created which is a subset of Product Backlog.

Since Sprints are a very short but a realistic representation of part of the product and a late finish of the Sprint is a great indicator that the project is not on schedule and some necessary adjustments in the plan and action need to be take.

Therefore, it’s extremely important to monitor the progress of Sprint.

Note: That's how technical details are kept separated from business and the owner of Sprint Backlog is Scrum Master not Product Owner (PO).

Step 5 - Daily Scrum and Burndown chart: Statistics prove human are more attentive and concentrated in standing position. Thus, a 15 minutes daily stand-up meeting is practiced, called as Daily Scrum to:

• Handle and manage the risks and blockers in timely manner.
• Record lessons learned by keeping the log of blockers and its resolutions.

Whereas, for regular monitoring checks Burndown chart is used to keep the Sprint velocity steered on right track. Where using the Burndown chart, team can easy calculate:

1. The slope of the graph, which is also called the Burndown Velocity, the average rate of productivity for each day. For example, on a given day the average rate of productivity is 50 hrs/day so based on that, it’s possible to calculate an estimated completion date for the Sprint or even for the entire Release.
2. Comparison between Actual Velocity and projected Completion Date as per the Release Time Estimate.
3. Whether the project progress is aligned with the projected timeline or not, which provides teams a time to make necessary adjustments.

Step 6 - Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective: At the end of the Sprint, the entire team (including product owner) reviews the results of the sprint with stakeholders of the product. The purpose of this discussion is to discuss, demonstrate, and potentially give the stakeholders a chance to use, the increment in order to get feedback. The Sprint Review is not intended to provide a status report. Feedback from the sprint review gets placed into the Product Backlog for future consideration.

At the end of the Sprint following the sprint review the team (including product owner) meet for Sprint Retrospective which should reflect upon how things went during the previous sprint and identify adjustments they could make going forward. The result of this retrospective is at least one action item included on the following Sprint’s Sprint Backlog and Scrum master strive for minimizing it in subsequent Sprints while referring to Lesson Learned write-ups.