A Scrum Summary
Introduction
As software engineers, we have to broaden our toolset. And when it comes to agile project management, Scrum is a great framework to learn.
What is Scrum?
Scrum does not care how you write your code or which tools you use. However, it focuses on organizing your team, tasks, and meetings.
Organizing your team
The team consists of three divisions, the development team, the product owner, and the scrum master. When it comes to developers, all developers have the same role. That is to reduce blaming members, and the whole development team has collective ownership. Having ownership means they have the final say on what technology to use.
What Are Sprints?
Sprints are how projects are delivered. Each sprint is two to three weeks long. The output of each sprint should be a stable release as if it is ready to ship. Every release is an addition toward completion. In the worst-case scenario, you get to throw two weeks of work.
The Product Owner
A product owner is a single person, and their job is to ensure that the requirements are met and prioritize them in the product backlog. The product owner communicates with the development team, and no one can alter it without the product owner’s approval.
The Scrum Master
The scrum master is like an eagle-eye observer and helps the team to implement Scrum correctly. This person can aid the product owner on how to set up the product backlog. The scrum master can also facilitate all needs required to make the project from stalling due to external interruptions such as a lack of equipment or an unsuitable working environment.
The Scrum Artifact
the artifact is the combination of three core documents, the product backlog, the sprint backlog, and the definition of done.
Definition of done
Done is specific, and in the Scrum guidelines, done is in a double quotation. Done means the code has been profiled, tested, refactored, and documented. Or whatever is agreed upon and signed off. The other two states are almost done and not done.
The Product Backlog
The product backlog includes all the work needed for the project completion. In the beginning, this log is unrefined due to ambiguity. It is due to refinements during the lifetime of the project.
Each task should have an estimate, and the developer team is responsible for providing task estimates. There are many techniques to come up with the best estimate, such as planning poker agile estimate technique.
The Sprint log
The sprint backlog is a subset of the product backlog. The takeaway is that the project should sustain constant velocity. Too much work and developers might develop low morale, and too few tasks might stall the project.
The Meetings
There are four types of meetings, the planning sprints meeting, the daily scrum meeting, the sprint review meeting, and the sprint retrospective meeting.
The Planning Sprint Meeting
The planning sprints meeting has a time frame of eight hours for a month. The output is the sprint backlog, which includes a subset of tasks for the active sprint.
The Daily Meeting
The daily meeting, also known as the executing sprints, is a 15 minutes meeting. In this meeting, the development team should state three things:
- Work done yesterday
- Work to be done today
- Obstacles facing the development team
Attendees participate while standing because it’s a brief and not a troubleshooting session.
The sprint review meeting
The sprint review meeting is when the sprint is ready for approval. Its time frame is 2–4 hours. This meeting is different because all stakeholders attend to provide feedback.
The Sprint Retrospective Meeting
In the sprint retrospective meeting, the scrum master is the meeting head. It is 1–3 hours long to list all new experiences.
The Conclusion
The Scrum framework introduces and broadens your view in an era where rapid development is a competitive edge.
What if you are running multiple dependent projects? How to scale upwards, simply a shared product log, to see what each team is doing?
Stay focused and tackle a single sprint at a time.
