Agile SCRUM Methodology

Agile SCRUM Methodology

Agenda

• Introduction
• What is Agile Methodology?
• What is Scrum?
• History of Scrum
• Functionality of Scrum
• Components of Scrum

1. Scrum Roles
2. The Process
3. Scrum Artifacts

• Scaling Scrum
• Q & A Session

Introduction

Classical methods of software development have many disadvantages:

• huge effort during the planning phase
• poor requirements conversion in a rapid changing environment
• treatment of staff as a factor of production

New methods:

Agile Software Development Methodology

What is Agile:

Agile proponents believe

1. Current software development processes are too heavyweight or cumbersome

Too many things are done that are not directly related to software product being produced

2. Current software development is too rigid

Difficulty with incomplete or changing requirements

Short development cycles (Internet applications)

3. More active customer involvement needed

CMM focuses on process

4. Agile methods are considered

Lightweight

People-based rather than Plan-based

5. Several agile methods

No single agile method

XP most popula

6. No single definition

7. Agile Manifesto closest to a definition

Set of principles

Developed by Agile Alliance

Agile Manifesto

• A Statement of 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

Agile Methods:

• Scrum
• Extreme Programming
• Adaptive Software Development (ASD)
• Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM)

Scrum in 100 words

• Scrum is an agile process that allows us to focus on delivering the highest business value in the shortest time.
• It allows us to rapidly and repeatedly inspect actual working software (every two weeks to one month).
• The business sets the priorities. Our teams self-manage to determine the best way to deliver the highest priority features.
• Every two weeks to a month anyone can see real working software and decide to release it as is or continue to enhance for another iteration.

Srum:

History of Scrum

1995:

• analysis of common software development processes  not suitable for empirical, unpredictable and non-repeatable processes
• Design of a new method: Scrum by Jeff Sutherland & Ken Schwaber
• Enhancement of Scrum by Mike Beedle & combination of Scrum with Extreme Programming

1996:

introduction of Scrum at OOPSLA conference

2001:

publication “Agile Software Development with Scrum” by

Ken Schwaber & Mike Beedle

• Successful appliance of Scrum in over 50 companies
• Founders are members in the Agile Alliance

Characteristics:

• Self-organizing teams
• Product progresses in a series of month-long “sprints”
• Requirements are captured as items in a list of “product backlog”
• No specific engineering practices prescribed
• Uses generative rules to create an agile environment for delivering projects
• One of the “agile processes”

How Scrum works:

Sprints

1. Scrum projects make progress in a series of “sprints”

Analogous to XP iterations

2. Target duration is one month

+/- a week or two

But, a constant duration leads to a better rhythm

3. Product is designed, coded, and tested during the sprint

Scrum Framework

Roles: Product Owner, ScrumMaster, Team

Ceremonies: Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, & Daily Scrum Meeting

Artifacts: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and Burndown Chart

Product Owner:

• Define the features of the product
• Decide on release date and content
• Be responsible for the profitability of the product (ROI)
• Prioritize features according to market value
• Adjust features and priority every iteration, as needed
• Accept or reject work results.

The Scrum master

• Represents management to the project
• Responsible for enacting Scrum values and practices
• Removes impediments
• Ensure that the team is fully functional and productive
• Enable close cooperation across all roles and functions
• Shield the team from external interferences

Scrum Team

• Typically 5-10 people
• Cross-functional
  QA, Programmers, UI Designers, etc.
• Members should be full-time
  May be exceptions (e.g., System Admin, etc.)
• Teams are self-organizing
  What to do if a team self-organizes someone off the team??
  Ideally, no titles but rarely a possibility
• Membership can change only between sprints

Ceremonies

• Sprint Planning Meeting
• Sprint
• Daily Scrum
• Sprint Review Meeting

Spring Planning Meeting

Part of sprint planning meeting:

1^st Part:

• Creating Product Backlog
• Determining the Sprint Goal.
• Participants: Product Owner, Scrum Master, Scrum Team

2^nd Part:

• Participants: Scrum Master, Scrum Team
• Creating Sprint Backlog

Pre-Project/ Kickoff Meeting

• A special form of Sprint Planning Meeting
• Meeting before the begin of the projects

Sprint:

• A month-long iteration , during which is incremented a product functionality
• NO outside influence can interfere with the Scrum team during the Sprint
• Each Sprint begins with the Daily Scrum Meeting

Daily Scrum:

• Parameters
  Daily
  5-minutes
  Stand-up
  Not for problem solving
• Three questions:
  What did you do yesterday
  What will you do today?
  What obstacles are in your way?
• Chickens and pigs are invited
  Help avoid other unnecessary meetings
• Only pigs can talk

• Is NOT a problem solving session
• Is NOT a way to collect information about WHO is behind the schedule
• Is a meeting in which team members make commitments to each other and to the Scrum Master
• Is a good way for a Scrum Master to track the progress of the Team

Sprint Review Meeting

• Team presents what it accomplished during the sprint
• Typically takes the form of a demo of new features or underlying architecture
• Informal
  2-hour prep time rule
• Participants
  Customers
  Management
  Product Owner
  Other engineers

Sprint Retrospective Meeting

• Scrum team only
• Feedback meeting
• Three questions
  Start
  Stop
  Continue
• Don't skip for the first 5-6 sprints.

Product Backlog

• A list of all desired work on the project
  Usually a combination of
  story-based work (“let user search and replace”)
  task-based work (“improve exception handling”)
• List is prioritized by the Product Owner
  Typically a Product Manager, Marketing, Internal Customer, etc.
• Requirements for a system, expressed as a prioritized list of Backlog Items
• Is managed and owned by a Product Owner
• Spreadsheet (typically)
• Usually is created during the Sprint Planning Meeting
• Can be changed and re-prioritized before each PM

Sample product BackLog

From Sprint Goal to Sprint Backlog

• Scrum team takes the Sprint Goal and decides what tasks are necessary
• Team self-organizes around how they’ll meet the Sprint Goal
  Manager doesn’t assign tasks to individuals
• Managers don’t make decisions for the team
• Sprint Backlog is created

Spring backlog during the sprint

Changes

Team adds new tasks whenever they need to in order to meet the Sprint Goal

Team can remove unnecessary tasks

But: Sprint Backlog can only be updated by the team

Estimates are updated whenever there’s new information

Sprint BackLog

• A subset of Product Backlog Items, which define the work for a Sprint
• Is created ONLY by Team members
• Each Item has it’s own status
• Should be updated every day
• No more than 300 tasks in the list
• If a task requires more than 16 hours, it should be broken down
• Team can add or subtract items from the list. Product Owner is not allowed to do it

Sample Sprint backlog

Sprint Burn Down Chart

• Depicts the total Sprint Backlog hours remaining per day
• Shows the estimated amount of time to release
• Ideally should burn down to zero to the end of the Sprint
• Actually is not a straight line
• Can bump UP

Sprint Burndown chart

• Will the release be done on right time?
• X-axis: sprints
• Y-axis: amount of hours remaining
• The estimated work remaining can also burn up
• Is a “big picture” view of project’s progress (all the releases)

Scalability of Scrum

• A typical Scrum team is 6-10 people
• Jeff Sutherland - up to over 800 people
• "Scrum of Scrums" or what called "Meta-Scrum“
• Frequency of meetings is based on the degree of coupling between packets

Pros/Cons

Advantages

• Completely developed and tested features in short iterations
• Simplicity of the process
• Clearly defined rules
• Increasing productivity
• Self-organizing
• each team member carries a lot of responsibility
• Improved communication
• Combination with Extreme Programming

Drawbacks

• “Undisciplined hacking” (no written documentation)
• Violation of responsibility
• Current mainly carried by the inventors