Agile Scrum
Agile Scrum is a project management framework that emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and iterative development. It involves breaking down work into small, manageable tasks and organizing them into short, time-boxed iterations called sprints. Scrum teams work closely together, regularly reviewing progress and adapting to changes, which allows for quick responses to evolving requirements and customer feedback.
8 Key excerpts on "Agile Scrum"
eBook - ePubAgile Faculty
Practical Strategies for Managing Research, Service, and Teaching
- Rebecca Pope-Ruark(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- University of Chicago Press(Publisher)
...In the next section, I will walk quickly through a simplified version of the framework as it is used in software development, defining the cycles, roles, and necessary terms to understand the process. The goal here is not to start thinking about research or teaching as a “product” or as necessarily team based. Instead, the goal is to change the definition of productivity and to think about how to create value through Scrum’s incremental and iterative approach. In the section after that, I will map the framework to faculty work by sharing examples from my own experience, so feel free to read whichever section appeals most to you. What Is Scrum? Scrum 1 is an empirical Agile framework that provides a clear and collaborative set of processes to allow teams of professionals to plan, execute, and deliver excellent work consistently over time. The name “Scrum” is borrowed from a 1986 Harvard Business Review article (see Takeuchi and Nonaka) in which the authors compared highly productive cross-functional product development teams to a rugby move in which members of both teams lock arms and work to gain possession of the ball with their feet. If the team members don’t collaborate well, they lose the ball (and people get hurt). Takeuchi and Nonaka argue that cross-functional collaborative teams allow for more innovation, more consistent productivity, and more flexibility in the face of changes over the development life cycle. They outline a process that several authors of the Agile Manifesto (see chapter 1), most notably Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, would formalize to what we now know as Scrum. The goal of Scrum in its original software development environment is to regularly create functional working software that users can effectively implement to meet their needs. Most software these days is web based, as even Microsoft and Adobe have recently moved to cloud models to deliver large packages like Office and Creative Suite...
eBook - ePub- Gunther Verheyen(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Van Haren Publishing(Publisher)
...Scrum is a process that helps surface the most effective process, practices and structures. Scrum creates the boundaries to help discover a way of working that is continuously adaptable to everybody’s actual context and current circumstances. Scrum is a. . . framework. The framework of Scrum sets the bounded environments for action, and leaves it to the people to take action, thereby deciding themselves what the best possible action is within those boundaries. ■ 2.5 PLAYING THE GAME Scrum, as a framework for Agile development, was designed to optimize for the creation of valuable products and services in turbulent enterprise, organizational, business and market circumstances, to derive value from such complex challenges. Scrum requires much discipline from its players, while leaving plenty of room for personal creativity and context-specific tactics. The rules of the game are based upon respect for the people-players through a subtle and balanced distribution of accountability. Respecting the rules of the game, not taking shortcuts on rules and roles, nor short-circuiting the empirical grounds of the game, delivers the most joys and greatest benefits for the players as well as the best results for the users and for the enterprise. The game board of Scrum shows the essential elements and principles of Scrum, everything that is required to play the game. It shows the players, the artifacts, the events and the main principles of the game of Scrum. The rules of Scrum bind these elements together. Figure 2.5 The Scrum Game Board 2.5.1 Players and Accountabilities Scrum organizes its players around three peer accountabilities: ■ Product Owner; ■ Developers; ■ Scrum Master. The combination of these accountabilities is known as the Scrum Team. As each accountability complements the other ones, collaboration is the key to success. Product Owner is a one-person player role upholding the business perspective in the creative process...
eBook - ePub- Denise Canty(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Auerbach Publications(Publisher)
...The product’s development is iterative, very flexible, and designed to incorporate changes at any point in the project. The information path on the project is very open and transparent where everyone can quickly and easily see the status. The Scrum team gets continuous feedback as a result of meetings and activities. Each Sprint provides the team with an opportunity for continuous improvement with the product and the team’s practices. The iterative nature of Scrum provides for frequent delivery of the product based on the customer’s needs which in turn translates to continuous value for the customer. The Scrum framework is based on working under a sustainable pace for an indefinite amount of time and typically this would mean that the workweek is 40 hours per week maximum. The product backlog, a requirements document that represents the project scope, is prioritized based on the product features that have the greatest amount of value for the customer. To be clear, the customer is responsible for making the determination as to which requirements are considered to be the high-value ones. High-value requirements are delivered earlier than those with lesser value. The Scrum development process is considered to be very efficient in that most of the activities are time-boxed. This means that a short and specific period of time is established for the work to be completed. This leads to an efficient development process for the Scrum project. The Scrum framework is reported to lead to very high levels of team motivation, namely because of the daily standup meetings and Sprint retrospective processes. The Sprint team can resolve problems faster than with traditional project management because of colocation, collaboration, and cross-functional teams. Scrum deliverables are deemed more effective because of regular customer interactions and the prioritized backlog based on the customer’s needs...
eBook - ePub- David Morris(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- In Easy Steps Limited(Publisher)
...11 The Scrum reference Scrum is one of the most popular agile frameworks for product development. This chapter is a quick reference to the Scrum framework with its roles, events, artifacts, and rules. The Scrum framework Scrum foundations Scrum roles Scrum events Scrum artifacts The rules of Scrum The origins of Scrum Summary The Scrum framework This chapter is a quick reference for the Scrum framework. It summarizes and reprises the information provided throughout the rest of this book: • Chapter One explains the business drivers for adopting a feedback-driven product development framework like Scrum. • Chapters Two through to Nine take you step-by-step from forming your first Scrum Team and creating a Product Vision, to delivering the product to market and reflecting how to get better at doing that. • Chapter Ten explores how organizations can scale up from their first team to cope with multiple teams working across multiple products. The framework The framework on which Scrum is based is a small set of loosely defined rules. These rules describe the responsibilities, timings, and deliverables that enable feedback-driven product development. These combine iterative design, incremental development, self-organizing teams, and continual improvement. Being a framework, rather than a prescribed methodology of practices, means that organizations can use a number of techniques to discover, design, and build their products – such as Extreme Programming (see here) and UX design (see here) – so long as they are complementary to Scrum. The Scrum framework consists of the Scrum Team (and the roles within it), the events that take place, the artifacts used and produced, and the rules that define how these all interact: The Scrum Team There are three key roles within the team: • Product Owner : responsible for the business value of the product, defining why and selecting what gets done. • Delivery Team : a self-organizing group of programmers, testers, analysts, etc...
eBook - ePubAgile Practices for Waterfall Projects
Shifting Processes for Competitive Advantage
- Barbee Davis(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- J. Ross Publishing(Publisher)
...Since feedback is not usually available until late in the project, that means that change is expensive. On the other hand, Scrum is based on the premise of the value of adaptability. It addresses the reality that it is difficult to capture and freeze the project details at the beginning, so it is structured to support and implement change throughout the life cycle. Since there is constant feedback, change is cheap in terms of time, non-wasted materials and resources, and emotional responses from the team. Developed by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland independently in the early 1990s, their jointly presented paper describing the Scrum methodology in 1995 was its first public unveiling. Scrum is a very specific process. However, it has a lot in common with the other Agile information you have already learned. Scrum also shares many similarities with other little agile approaches. To continue our comparison between Agile/Scrum and Waterfall/traditional practices, as project managers we all know the constant pull between the triple constraints, a framework for balancing competing demands. You may also hear it referred to as the “Iron Triangle.” The idea is that in a perfect world, all three corners of the triangle (time, cost, and scope) balance and create a framework in which the project team can deliver quality (the center of the triangle). When all of the parameters of the triangle are in harmony, the shape remains consistent. However, if you adjust one side (for example, try to reduce cost), you will be forced to adjust the other sides, too, altering the time it takes to complete the work, and scope, which is the amount of work you do. A familiar plan-driven approach to the work of projects (Waterfall) fixes the scope upfront and then adjusts the schedule (time) and the budget (cost) in order to achieve the scope promised...
eBook - ePubProject Management Fundamentals
Key Concepts and Methodology
- Gregory T. Haugan(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Berrett-Koehler Publishers(Publisher)
...This approach focuses on maximizing the project team’s ability to respond quickly to emerging requirements. 39 The SCRUM framework also accommodates large projects. 40 Individual multidisciplinary teams of eight to ten people work in parallel with other similarly sized teams. The key to multiple teams working together on a single large project is establishing two key interfaces. First, teams must determine how they will communicate with one another, and second, they must define business and system interfaces and boundaries. Figure 5.7. The SCRUM Process Defining business and system interfaces involves establishing an organized way for sprint teams to address emerging requirements throughout the project. 41 This begins by identifying logical work packages and interfaces, much like any standard work breakdown structure, and then by defining activities that will create business value using multiple SCRUM sprints. Early sprints follow classic rules for determining the structure of the deliverable, and latter sprints follow the classic rules for integration and testing. Figure 5.8 presents the SCRUM project methodology in the form of a generic WBS including tasks. Each of the sprints is planned as a set of recurring activities and assessments until the final deliverable is acceptable as the finished product. 42 Figure 5.8. A SCRUM Master WBS and Tasks Figure 5.9 depicts the corresponding WBS and tasks in MS Project; this format graphically illustrates the sprint phasing. Figure 5.9. A SCRUM Master Schedule Template COMPARING AGILE AND TRADITIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGIES This section recasts various agile development models in a generic project management environment...
eBook - ePub- Mark C. Layton, Steven J. Ostermiller, Dean J. Kynaston(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- For Dummies(Publisher)
...The reason is that principles and practices are different. The approaches described in this book, however, provide you with the necessary practices to be successful. Agile is a descriptive term for a number of techniques and methods that have the following similarities: Demonstrating valuable and potentially shippable functionality in short iterations called iterative development Emphasis on simplicity, transparency, and situation-specific strategies Cross-functional, self-organizing teams Working functionality as the measure of progress Responsiveness to changing requirements Synonyms of the word agile — including resilient, flexible, nimble, adaptive, lightweight, and responsive — give additional insights into what it means to be agile. Similarly, throughout this book, we reference agile teams. Agile teams, which include scrum teams (scrum being the most popular agile framework), are teams who adhere to the agile values and principles to become more resilient, flexible, nimble, adaptive, lightweight, and responsive in meeting their customer’s needs. Agile product development is an empirical approach. In other words, you do something in practice and adjust your approach based on experience rather than theory. With regards to product development, an empirical approach is braced by the following pillars: Unfettered transparency: Everyone involved in the process understands and can contribute to the development of the process. Frequent inspection: The inspector must inspect the product regularly and possess the skills to identify variances from acceptance criteria. Immediate adaptation: The development team must be able to adjust quickly to minimize further product deviations. A host of approaches have agile characteristics. Three, however, are commonly used: lean product development, scrum, and extreme programming (XP)...
eBook - ePub- Vibrant Publishers(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Vibrant Publishers(Publisher)
...Scrum This chapter is dedicated to the Scrum methodology. Here we shall see the end-to-end architecture of Scrum. It also describes the various Scrum roles, the various Scrum events, and the various artifacts used or created in Scrum. Key learnings: End-to-end view of Scrum methodology The roles in Scrum and their job description The events defined in Scrum and their purpose The different artifacts in Scrum A chronology of events in Scrum As discussed in the last chapter, Scrum is the most popular Agile methodology. Let us look at the various key parts of Scrum. 2.1 Scrum Overview Here is the overall architecture of the Scrum methodology. Let us start from the left of the diagram. The requirements are identified and put in a prioritized list called Product Backlog. Product Backlog consists of are all of the requirements, known now and the new ones that will be identified later on. All current and new requirements are included in the same Product Backlog. Hence, it is a one-stop shop for requirements on Scrum. The work is planned to be done in various iterations called Sprints. A Sprint Planning meeting is held to select some of the items from the Product Backlog. These are put in the Sprint Backlog. A Sprint generally lasts 1-4 weeks and the objective is to deliver all items from the Sprint Backlog. A daily Scrum meeting is held in order to track progress. A Sprint is time boxed. This means that its duration cannot change irrespective of whether all the items have been successfully delivered or not. Undelivered items are moved back to the Product Backlog to be taken up in a future Sprint. Duration of Sprint never changes...
