Events - Scrum Bootcamp: Learn the Basics of Scrum Programming (2016)

Scrum Bootcamp: Learn the Basics of Scrum Programming (2016)

Chapter 3. Events

Agile practitioners consider Scrum as a set of events and their resulting“artifacts.” As mentioned earlier, Scrum uses time-boxed events to manage projects. The term“time-boxed” means that each event has a predetermined deadline. This allows the members of the Scrum Team to see their overall progress in completing the project. The most important Scrum events are:

Sprint

In this event, the Scrum Team develops a working increment of the product. Usually, a Sprint involves 1 month or 2 weeks, and this time period is applied on all of the Sprints in a project. Consistency in terms of the time period is important. It would be confusing and inefficient if the team members need to adjust to varying deadlines.

The Goal of a Sprint

Each sprint has a specific goal. The goal informs team members regarding the increment’s purpose. The team sets this goal during the planning phase of the sprint. The product owner and the rest of the team set and clarify the sprint’s scope. They also make adjustments on the sprint whenever they discover new things regarding the project.

Sprint Planning

This stage allows you to set the activities that you must complete within the sprint. The planning stage usually lasts for four hours for two-week sprints and eight hours for month-long sprints. The ScrumMaster is responsible in ensuring that meetings take place and that the needed members are present. Also, the ScrumMaster must facilitate the meeting to ensure the productivity and timeliness of the discussion.

In general, sprint planning concentrates on the following questions:

· What should be completed in the current increment?

· What can be completed in the current increment?

· How can the entire team achieve the goals of the sprint?

This stage needs the following inputs:

· The project backlog

· The latest increment of the project

· The estimated capacity of the scrum team

· The previous performance of the scrum team

The entire team will discuss the features/functionalities that must be developed within the current sprint. The product owner should clarify the most important parts of the sprint through the project backlog. The team members choose the items that will be included in the backlog, since they know what they can accomplish within the time-box assigned to them. The tasks are completed collaboratively, an approach that minimizes rework.

After deciding on the feature/s to be developed, the team must decide on how to add those features into the project. The backlog items chosen for the sprint as well as the strategy for implementing them are known as sprint backlog.

The tasks to be completed within a sprint are approximated in the planning stage. They may be of different sizes and complexities. Once the sprint planning has been completed, the project is separated into tasks that last up to a whole day. This approach helps ScrumMasters in assigning tasks and checking the progress of the project. If the members of the scrum team realize that they have too little (or too much) tasks, they may talk to the ScrumMaster and the product owner to make the necessary changes.

The members may also ask others (i.e. people who aren’t part of the current Scrum Team) to help in the planning stage. Non-members can provide cost estimates, technical suggestions or practical tips.

Daily Meetings

These meetings last for 15 minutes. They are held daily to understand the things that have been completed in the previous day and formulate a plan for the current day. Some Scrum practitioners refer to these meetings as“Stand Up” meetings.

Daily meetings are conducted at the same place and time. This way, the team members can reduce the complexity of the meetings and focus on what they should do.

During a meeting, each member of the Scrum team must answer the following questions:

· How did he/she help the Scrum team in meeting the goal?

· How can he/she assist the team in meeting the sprint goal?

· Did he/she notice any obstacle that stops him/her or the whole Scrum team from attaining the sprint’s goal?

Some people think that daily meetings are held to track the project’s progress. However, this is a faulty assumption. Actually, daily meetings are conducted to plan what must be done for the project, not just to check what has been accomplished.

According to Scrum experts, all of the team members are responsible for the productivity and effectiveness of the Daily Meetings. That means each member must help in conducting the daily meetings, although the ScrumMaster performs the managerial tasks involved.

Here are the benefits offered by daily meetings:

· These meetings improve the communication between team members.

· Daily meetings help in identifying project-related problems. They also help in solving problems quickly and efficiently.

· They promote and emphasize fast decision-making.

· They improve the project-related knowledge of the team members.

Sprint Review

The Scrum Team should hold this event before concluding each sprint. In this stage, the team members should review the project increment before releasing it (i.e. either to the client or to the next sprint session). During a sprint review, all of the stakeholders (i.e. the people affected by or involved in the project) should check what was accomplished in the current sprint. These stakeholders will give their suggestions as to what must be accomplished in the next sprint session. They will base these suggestions on two factors:

· Their findings from the Sprint review

· The changes that were made to the project backlog during the current sprint

The goal of this stage is to get feedback from the stakeholders and ensure consistent progress.

In general, the duration of a sprint review depends on the sprint’s time-box. Sprint reviews for 2-week sprints last for two hours. Month-long sprints, on the other hand, require 4-hour reviews; thus, each week spent on a sprint requires one hour of review.

During a Sprint Review, the ScrumMaster should:

· Make sure that the meeting occurs.

· Inform the team members regarding the goal/purpose of the sprint review.

· Help the members to focus on the important topics.

· Make sure that the meeting ends in a timely manner.

The following events occur during a sprint review:

· The product owner invites non-members to attend the review (optional).

· The product owner discusses the project backlog. He/she will inform everyone regarding the backlog items that have been completed. Then, he/she will enumerate the backlog items that were not finished within the sprint.

· The team members discuss the positive aspects of the sprint, the problems they encountered and how they solved those problems.

· The team members demonstrate the work that they have completed. They will also answer questions, if any, regarding the project increment.

· The whole group (i.e. both members and non-members) decides on what should be done in the next sprint; thus, the review stage generates important inputs that are useful for the next sprint session.

· The members of the Scrum team check the aspects (e.g. budget, timeline, marketplace, capabilities, potential, etc.) related to the release of a product increment.

Once the sprint review has been completed, the Scrum team will update the project backlog. These updates define the backlog items that will be used for the subsequent sprint.

Sprint Retrospective

This stage happens before the start of the next sprint’s planning stage. The sprint retrospective of 2-week sprints lasts for one hour while that of month-long sprints lasts for three hours.

Basically, a sprint retrospective aims to:

· Utilize the information gathered from the previous sprint session in terms of tools, people, processes and relationships.

· Determine the backlog items that worked well.

· Identify the sprint’s areas of improvement.

· Create a plan for improving the project’s effectiveness and overall quality.

Scrum allows you to review your previous performance; thus, it helps you to improve the effectiveness of your subsequent sprint sessions.