An agile approach characterized by

• small teams with a few distinct but clearly defined roles
• Development cycles through sprints of 7–30 days
  • Planning meeting at beginning
  • Daily scrum meeting (< 15 min.)
  • Sprint Review meeting at end to review work completed (or not)
  • Sprint Retrospective meeting at end to discuss process

Scrum in Context

As the name suggests, Scrum

• focuses a bit more on the team than on the tools
• envisions a kind of controlled chaos

1. Values

• Transparency

  • Process must be visible to those responsible for the outcome

  • Common standards contribute to understandability

    Examples:

    • ubiquitous language
    • definition of “Done”
• Inspection

  • Scrum participants inspect one anothers’ work

    Contrast with XP’s pair programming

• Adaptation
  • Inspections lead to adjustment of process (not products)

2. Practices

2.1 Scrum Teams

• Product owner
  • representative or agent of stakeholders
  • manages the project backlog (list of unimplemented work)
• Scrum master
  • interface between project owner and development team
  • aids project owner in arranging backlog
  • ensures that development team adheres to Scrum practices
  • removes impediments to team’s progress
  • “facilitates” Scrum events
• Development team
  • 3–9 members
  • must span required skill set
  • any internal roles are self-organized

2.2 Scrum Events

Sprints

• 7–30 day, time-boxed iterations
• produces a new product increment
• focused on a Sprint Goal

Sprint Planning

Held at beginning of sprint:

• What will be delivered in the next increment?
  • Stories selected from project backlog
  • defines the Sprint Goal
• How will the work be done?
  • Work planned for first few days of spring
  • Decomposed into tasks.

Daily Scrum

• 15-minute daily meeting

• Each development team member explains
  • What did I do yesterday?
  • What will I do today?
  • Are there any impediments that will prevent us from reaching the Spring Goal?

Sprint Review

• Held at end of sprint

• 4-hour time-boxed meeting (for 1-month sprints)

• Product owner
  • explains what items are Done and not Done
  • Reviews the new state of the project backlog
• Development Team
  • explains what went well and poorly
  • demonstrates the increment and answers questions
• Entire team
  • discuss what to do next
  • discusses external changes

Sprint Retrospective

• After sprint review, before next sprint planning

• 3-hour time-boxes meeting

• Team inspects its own performance
  • people, relationships, process, tools

• Identifies potential improvements

• Sets quality goals
  • adjusting definition of “Done”

2.3 Backlogs

Project Backlog

• Unimplemented requirements
• often, but not always stories

Sprint Backlog

• Unimplemented tasks that are part of the Sprint Goal
• Managed on task board

Burndown Charts

A burndown chart shows amount of work remaining in the sprint backlog

• updated daily
• displayed in team work area
• provides visual indicator of progress

3. Scaling Up

An extension to Scrum for larger projects:

• Scrum of Scrums
  • Each Daily Scrum appoints one team member to serve as the day’s “ambassador” to a daily Scrum of Scrums meeting
  • Same basic questions as Daily Scrum, adjusted for team level
    • What has your team done since we last met?
    • What will your team do before we meet again?
    • What impediments (especially those that will affect other teams) does your team foresee?