What is Scrum?

Basic

difficulty

Stage 1

Agile IQ® Level

Guardrails

Practices

Scrum

Framework

Introduction

Scrum was developed by Sutherland and Schwaber in the early 1990s. It’s is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organisations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.

The Scrum framework is purposefully incomplete, only defining the parts required to implement empiricism. It’s not designed to be modified or customised, but to be built on top of to help adapt it to your team’s context, their work, and their goals.

Various processes, techniques and methods can be employed within the framework. Scrum makes visible the relative efficacy of current management, environment, and work techniques, so that improvements can be made.

Scrum myths

Project or Products?

Scrum is taught as an Agile Product Development framework.

How many peole use Scrum?

80% of teams use Scrum. Many pair Scrum with another framework such as XP or Kanban.

Stand-up?

The Stand-up comes from the framework Extreme Programming (XP), not from Scrum. Scrum has the 'Daily Scrum'.

Delivery Manager?

The Product Owner is accountable for delivery, not the Scrum Master.

Agile Project Manager?

There is no 'project manager' role in Scrum. Those accountabilities are split between Scrum's 3 product development roles.

Sprint 0?

Sprint 0 is considered an 'anti-pattern'. By definition, a Sprint must deliver some visible business value by the end of the timebox. Design, building and testing all must occur in the same Sprint.

Actions

Learn about Scrum’s roles, events and artefacts.
Apply the basics from the start of the next Sprint.
Assess what happened and why at the Retrospective at the end of the Sprint.

Quality

Did quality improve? What did the team do that caused quality to improve or get worse? When did this occur?

Throughput

Did the number of items that got to Done go up or down? What did the team do that caused this to happen?

Transparency

Was it easier to see the status of work and progress toward the Sprint Goal? Did stakeholders find it easier to understand these things? Why?

Teamwork

Was collaboration more effective? What did the team do to make them feel this way? Ensure you know the cause so you can repeat it next time.

Stakeholder collaboration

Did stakeholders report they felt more engaged? What did the team do to cause this? How will you make sure it happens again?

Goal Achieved

Did the team acheive its goal? What did they do this time that meant the goal was acheived? Make sure you know the cause so you can repeat it next Sprint.

The Five Scrum Events

Scrum combines four formal events for inspection and adaptation within a containing event, the Sprint. These events work because they implement the empirical Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

Sprint Planning

Sprint Planning initiates the Sprint by laying out the work to be performed for the Sprint. This resulting plan is created by the collaborative work of the entire Scrum Team.

Daily Scrum

The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work.

Sprint Review

The purpose of the Sprint Review is to inspect the outcome of the Sprint, and the current environment, collaboratively with stakeholders and determine future adaptations.

Retrospective

The purpose of the Sprint Review is to inspect the outcome of the Sprint, and the current environment, collaboratively with stakeholders and determine future adaptations.

The Sprint

The Sprint is a container for all other events and is used to deliver value. They are fixed length events of one month or less to create consistency. A new Sprint starts immediately after the conclusion of the previous Sprint.