WHAT IS SCRUM and AGILE FRAMEWORK

DEFINITION:

Scrum is a framework which helps people, teams and organization to deliver value through adaptive solutions. It is an agile project management technique which gives certain guidelines on how to approach a problem then solve it. Its foundation is in on lean thinking and empiricism. Lean thinking means to reduce waste and focus only on the essentials. Empiricism means the knowledge is based on experience and in scrum, teams should learn from experiences and change accordingly.   

PILLARS OF SCRUM:

There are three main pillars of scrum:

Transparency – means visibility of the work getting done. It should be visible to both the arty doing the work and the party for whom the work is getting done. The work getting done can be perceived through the current state of the product backlog and sprint backlog. If these artefacts are not very transparent (means visible to others) then it increases the overall risk and simultaneously decrease the overall value. 

Inspection – means to examine something closely. The first principle of scrum i.e., transparency leads to inspection. For being transparent the artifacts should be open to inspection. Inspection helps in identifying if there are any deviations from the agreed sprint goals or overall product goal. It gives a chance to make the necessary changes within the time to not let a problem reach to such a magnitude that damages done are irreversible. 

Adaptation – means to make changes according to the purpose. The previous pillar of scrum i.e., inspection leads to adaptation. If we inspect and find a fault, we will have to necessarily take corrective measures to rectify the fault and achieve the final objective. Taking this corrective measure is the adaptation principle. 

THE SCRUM TEAM:

The scrum team comprises of one scrum master, one product owner and developers. They all share the same Product goal, product owner and product backlog. It is a small team (normally 10 or lesser people) that shares the same goal. The team is small because it helps in effective and efficient communication within the team.    

The product owner – is the person that envisions the product, defines the product goal. Knows the business problem and gives the solution in the form of a product. She/he translates that business problem solution into product backlog and is responsible for effectively communicating the both the product goal and backlog items to the scrum team. The sole purpose of the product owner is to maximize the value of the product. She/he is responsible for the content and ordering of the content of product backlog. The product owner is a single person and not a committee.  

Developers – all the people withing the scrum team that are responsible for taking the product backlog items into sprint backlog and delivering value at the end of each sprint are known as developers. They are responsible for creating the sprint backlog, maintaining the quality of within each piece of incremental work being delivered at each sprint end. 

The scrum master – is responsible for creating scrum as defined in scrum guide to practice within team, people and organization. Their main job is to increase scrum team effectiveness to achieve their goals. They do so by making scrum team practice scrum methodologies correctly and iteratively. The scrum master creates an environment within a scrum team that helps

o   Product owner to make the product backlog which envisions the product and constantly groom the product backlog to solve a complex problem

o   Scrum team to deliver value every sprint and remove any impediments faced by scrum teams

o   Scrum team and the stakeholder inspect the result after every sprint. And as per the inspection adjust and adapt for the subsequent sprint.  

SCRUM EVENTS

The sprint – it is a scrum event within which all the other scrum events reside. It’s a time bound event (usually a month or lesser in duration) in which an incremental value is delivered. All the work necessary to achieve the product goal happens within the sprint i.e. the product backlog, sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review, sprint retrospective. During the sprint the product backlog is redefined as needed, scope can be renegotiated with the product owner if any new information become evident. It is made sure that nothing hampers the sprint goal. Sprint could be cancelled if and only if the sprint goal becomes obsolete. And only the product owner has the authority to cancel a sprint.

Sprint planning – is the first of the many scrum events. Its an event in where all scrum team members gather to discuss what to be taken up for development in upcoming sprint. The product backlog items are chosen to then become a part of sprint backlog. The sprint planning addresses three main agendas 

- Product owner answers the question why is sprint valuable – at the end of the sprint what incremental value will be created? 

- What can be done in the sprint – the developers select the items from the product backlog to be taken for current sprint. The entire scrum team groom these items so that the scope of the sprint becomes much clearer. 

- How it has to be done – the developers break each item into workable chunks so that the entire work becomes available in small pieces of individual task.

Daily scrum – it’s a daily time boxed event (maximum time of 15 minutes) that happens where developers within the scrum team meet to inspect on the progress as per the sprint goal. It gives them an opportunity to adjust the sprint backlog and plan to work ahead. It helps in increasing communication within the team, identify any impediments and promotes quick decision making. It generally happens at the same place, same time just to reduce ambiguity.

Sprint review – the main objective of the sprint review is to present the outcome of the sprint to the stakeholders and determine if any adaptations are required in future sprints. The scrum team presents the progress made towards the product goal. It’s a time boxed event to a maximum of 4 hours for a one-month sprint, for shorter sprints the event is shorter. 

Sprint retrospective – the objective of this scrum even to help and improve the quality and effectiveness of the sprint. The scrum team meets and discuss what went well, what problems were faced and what actions were taken to overcome the problem. It also discusses the how the last sprint went with respect to people, processes and definition of done.

SCRUM ARTIFACTS:

The scrum artifacts represent the work done. Each scrum artifact helps to increase the transparency of key information and anyone in the scrum team can inspect these artifacts. Each scrum artifact has a commitment attached to it which increases focus against which progress can be measured and enhances transparency.  There are following kinds of scrum artefacts

Product Backlog – the product backlog is an ordered list of what needs to be improved in the product. It is an emergent document that keeps on evolving. It is single source of truth from where the work is taken by the scrum team. The commitment attached to this scrum artefact is the product goal, it describes the future state of the product which serves as the target for the scrum team.

Sprint Backlog – it is the list of items from the product backlog that are taken as sprint goals in every sprint and a plan to deliver this increment. It is plan made by and for the developers. As all scrum artifacts this also is highly visible document about the plan that developers plan to achieve in the sprint. It a document that is constantly updated based on the information received. The commitment attached to this document is the sprint goal, which is discussed and agreed upon in the sprint planning. The sprint goal is then added to the sprint backlog.   

Increment – is the additive value that is delivered after each sprint. Each increment helps the scrum team to move closer to the product goal. Each increment should be usable on its own and also should be integrable with all the previous increments.  The commitment attached to this scrum artifact is the definition of done as until and unless the work meets the definition of done it cannot be termed as increment. Definition of done is the description that makes the work to be an increment, meaning it meets the required quality standards and helps to achieve the product goals.