Agile Scrum Process Guide
Agile is an iterative and incremental approach to project management that can be applied to software development, hardware development, marketing and even non-profit projects. It helps teams to develop product solutions in small and incremental ways that are more controllable and results are evaluated in short development cycles to provide feedback so teams can react and respond to changes quickly.
The Agile Manifesto emerged in 2001 as an attempt to uncover better ways of developing software and find a common ground for better practices. The Manifesto values “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools; Working software over comprehensive documentation; Customer collaboration over contract negotiation; Responding to change over following a plan”. Overall, the Manifesto contains 12 Principles, that have been embraced by many individuals, teams, and companies.
There are various frameworks to implement Agile, including Scrum, Lean, Kanban, XP, and others. A lot of teams choose Scrum when they start working with Agile. Scrum is the most popular Agile method.
Scrum is a cyclical framework that helps teams manage product development. The framework contains Scrum roles, events (or ceremonies), artifacts and rules, and uses an iterative approach to deliver working products. It encourages teams to learn from experience, to self-organize as they work through problems, and to reflect on their gains and losses for continuous improvement. The core values of Scrum depend on how well teams can live up to these five values: openneSs, Courage, Respect, focUs, and Commitment to successfully implement Scrum.
Scrum Process
Scrum includes the following four elements, Roles, Events, Artifacts, and Rules. Scrum uses an iterative approach for product development where it defines Sprint a short, time-bound period in which a Scrum team works to complete a set amount of work.
Roles
There are three roles, Scrum Development team, Product Owner, and Scrum Master. These people form a Scrum team. Usually, there are about 4-7 and no more than 9 people in a Scrum team.
Scrum Development team: cross-functional group; tries to develop a “potentially shippable product increment” every sprint; collaborates; self-organizing.
Product owner: responsible for return on investment (ROI), final arbiter of requirements questions, focused more on the what than on the how.
Scrum master: has no management authority; doesn’t have a project manager role; facilitator (maybe also educate team members on modern development processes.
Events (or Ceremonies)
The five Scrum events are Sprint planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint review, Sprint retrospective, and Backlog refinement. There meetings or ceremonies are held to provide a structured setting that empowers team members to collaborate effectively and ensure transparency so that team members have a shared understanding of the progress toward the product goal.
Artifacts
Scrum defines three artifacts: product backlog, sprint backlog, and a potentially releasable product increment. Scrum artifacts are essential to help teams plan all work and future goals. It is critical for all team members to set consistent expectations and organize sprints for smooth and effective product development.
Rules
The main purpose of the Scrum rules is to optimize the development process and minimize the amount of time wasted. Some useful rules described throughout the Scrum guide are listed below:
** Typically, a Scrum team consists of three to nine people in total.
** There are no titles on the Scrum team besides developer to encourage cross-functional behavior and avoid sub-teams and foster team ownership.
** The Scrum Master makes sure the daily Scrum Meeting happens; it’s typically held in the same location and at the same time each day and kept within the 15-minute time box.
** The three question format for Daily Scrum. What did I do yesterday? What will I do today? And, Do I see any impediments?
** Time-box for Events:: it is usually shorter for shorter duration of sprints.
** Progress Trends:: it’s recommended to use practices, burn down charts, cumulative flows, etc., to monitor progress trends.
** Sprint Review:: Scrum Teams may decide to discuss and touch upon various aspects of Product Delivery during the Sprint Review as they see fit in their context.
** Release to Production:: Increments need to be in a usable state and conform to the Scrum team’s DoD, but the option to publish the increment to the production environment is left to the product owner.
** Definition of Done:: As stated in Scrum Guides the Definition of Done (DoD) is “When a Product Backlog item or an Increment is described as “Done”, one must understand what ‘Done’ means. Although this may vary significantly for every Scrum Team, members must have a shared understanding of what it means for work to be completed and to ensure transparency. This is the definition of ‘Done’ for the Scrum Team and it is used to assess when work is complete on the product Increment.”. The Scrum team might revisit the DoD at each retrospective meeting or continue to use the same DoD unless something new is learned to improve the quality of the product.
Conclusion
Scrum is a practical methodology. Not every team can quickly adapt and implement this system, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that Scrum is beneficial to every team. However, I often encounter the following questions from some teams: “Engineers have been working together for a month or two, but there is a trend of increasing fragmentation, so I don’t know how to start managing. “I don’t know where to start planning the product after the system structure has become bigger. Prioritizing the development process has become a challenge”.
In fact, these are all issues of project management and communication in development engineering. The biggest fear in development team management is losing focus and poor communication. Scrum may be able to help in this regard. Of course, you need to rely on someone with project management experience to lead the team, so that the implementation of Scrum can make the product development cycle much smoother.