Beginner's Guide To Scrum And Agile Project Management

Are you looking to improve your project management process? Agile Scrum might be the solution for you. This guide will provide you with a step-by-step walkthrough of implementing Agile Scrum, helping you revolutionize your project management approach.

Three distinct roles are identified within the Scrum methodology:

• The Scrum master, who ensures the process is followed, removes impediments and protects the Development Team from disruption
• The Product Owner, who represents the stakeholders and the business
• The Development Team, a cross-functional, self-organising team who do the actual analysis, design, implementation, testing, etc.

The development cycle of a software project is broken into timeboxed units called sprints. Typical time frames for a sprint are a week or a month for larger projects. Every day, within a sprint, the project's progress is evaluated.

Requirements for the final product are maintained in a list called the backlog (product backlog). Each sprint will implement one or more requirements (sprint backlog), after which the next sprint will start.

Roles in Agile Scrum

One of the first steps in implementing Agile Scrum is to identify the different roles and responsibilities within the framework. The three leading roles in Scrum are the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the Development Team. By clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of each team member, you can ensure that everyone understands their role in the Agile Scrum process and can work together effectively to achieve the project goals.

Product Owner

The Product Owner represents the voice of the customer and is accountable for ensuring that the team delivers value to the business. The Product Owner writes customer-centric items (typically user stories), prioritises them, and adds them to the product backlog. Scrum teams should have one Product Owner, and while they may also be a member of the development team, it is recommended that this role not be combined with that of Scrum Master.

Scrum Master

Scrum is facilitated by a Scrum Master who is accountable for removing impediments to the ability of the team to deliver the sprint goal/deliverables. The Scrum Master is not the team leader but acts as a buffer between the team and any distracting influences. The Scrum Master ensures that the Scrum process is used as intended. The Scrum Master is the enforcer of rules. A key part of the Scrum Master's role is to protect the Development Team and keep it focused on the tasks at hand.

Development Team

The Development Team is responsible for delivering potentially shippable product increments at the end of each Sprint. A Development Team comprises people with cross-functional skills who do the actual work (analysis, design, development, test, technical communication, document, etc.). The Development Team in Scrum is self-organising.

Agile Scrum Sprints

A sprint is the basic unit of development in Scrum. Sprints last between one week and one month and are a "timeboxed" (i.e. restricted to a specific duration) effort of a constant length.

Each sprint is preceded by a planning meeting, where the tasks for the sprint are identified, and an estimated commitment for the sprint goal is made, followed by a review or retrospective meeting, where the progress is reviewed, and lessons for the next sprint are identified.

During each sprint, the team creates finished portions of a product. The set of features that go into a sprint comes from the product backlog, a prioritised list of requirements. The sprint planning meeting determines the backlog items that go into the sprint. During this meeting, the Product Owner informs the team of the items they want to be completed in the product backlog. The team then determines how much of this they can commit to complete during the next sprint and records this in the sprint backlog. During a sprint, no one is allowed to change the sprint backlog, which means that the requirements are frozen for that sprint. Development is timeboxed such that the sprint must end on time; if requirements are not completed, they are left out and returned to the product backlog. After completing a sprint, the team demonstrates how to use the software.

A fundamental principle of Scrum is its recognition that during a project, the customers can change their minds about what they want and need and that unpredictable challenges must be addressed in a traditional, predictive or planned manner. As such, Scrum adopts an empirical approach - accepting that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined, focusing instead on maximising the team's ability to deliver quickly and respond to emerging requirements.

Agile Scrum Meetings

Meetings are an essential aspect of Agile Scrum. Meetings provide opportunities for collaboration and problem-solving, helping to ensure the success of the Agile Scrum implementation. By conducting daily standup meetings and sprint reviews, teams can stay organised, communicate effectively, and continuously improve their processes.

Daily Scrum Standup

Each day during the sprint, a project status meeting occurs. This meeting is called a daily scrum or a daily standup. The daily standup allows team members to share updates on their progress, discuss any challenges or obstacles, and plan their work for the next 24 hours. The daily standup helps ensure everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals. This meeting has specific guidelines:

• The meeting starts precisely on time.
• All are welcome, but normally only the core roles speak
• The meeting length is set (timeboxed) to 10 minutes
• The meeting should happen at the same location and at the same time every day
• During the meeting, each team member answers three questions:
  • What have you done since yesterday?
  • What are you planning to do today?
  • Any impediments/stumbling blocks?

It is the role of the Scrum Master to facilitate the resolution of these impediments, although the resolution should occur outside the Daily Scrum itself to keep it as short as possible.

Story Review Meeting

At the beginning of a sprint, a story review meeting is held in which the product owner runs through each of the stories they want completed. This includes running through the requirements and background information and allowing the development team to ask any questions that they may have.

Story Planning Meeting

After the story review, a story planning meeting is held. This meeting is where the development team discusses each story, plans the tasks and decides how long each task will take.

The sprint planning meeting has specific guidelines:

• Meetings should not be longer than an hour
• Meeting does not include breaking stories into tasks
• The team can decide how many weekly meetings are needed.

Sprint Retrospective

At the end of each sprint, a retrospective meeting should take place.

• All team members reflect on the past sprint
• Team members identify what went well and what could have gone better
• Make continuous process improvements

Scrum of Scrums

A Scrum of Scrums occurs each day, generally after the Daily Scrum. This meeting allows clusters of teams to discuss their work, especially on overlap and integration.

• A designated person from each team attends.
• The agenda will be the same as the Daily Scrum, plus the following four questions:
  • What has your team done since we last met?
  • What will your team do before we meet again?
  • Is anything slowing your team down or getting in their way?
  • Are you about to put something in another team's way?

Sprint Review Meeting

Sprint review meetings are held at the end of each sprint. The team demonstrates the completed work to stakeholders during the sprint review meeting and gathers feedback. This feedback is then used to refine and prioritise the product backlog for the next sprint. Sprint reviews are essential for ensuring that the team delivers value to the customer and meets their expectations.

Tips to Implement Agile Scrum in Your Team or Organisation

Before implementing Agile Scrum in your team or organisation, it's important to understand the framework clearly. The first step in implementing Agile Scrum is to set up the Scrum team and decide who will fulfil each role. The product owner should also define the product backlog by creating user stories.

Once the Scrum team and product backlog are set up, the next step in implementing Agile Scrum is to plan and execute sprints. A sprint is a timeboxed period, usually between one to four weeks, during which the team works on a set of prioritised items from the product backlog. Decide how long each sprint should last. This is usually determined by the team size and how much work can be managed in a sprint.

During the sprint planning meeting, the team selects items from the product backlog that they believe they can complete within the sprint. They break down these items into smaller, manageable tasks and estimate the effort required for each task.

The team starts working on the tasks once the sprint plan is in place. Daily scrum meetings are held to provide updates on progress, discuss any challenges or obstacles, and plan the work for the next 24 hours.

At the end of the sprint, the team holds a sprint review meeting to demonstrate the completed work to stakeholders and gather feedback. This feedback is then used to refine and prioritise the product backlog for the next sprint.

Following this iterative and incremental approach, Agile Scrum allows teams to deliver value to the customer early and frequently while allowing flexibility and adaptation to changing requirements.