SCRUM GUIDE

Hi There! My name is Scrumpanion, your (Bavarian) Agile companion. Before you start, let me tell you about the Scrum Guide according to which we work in our small remote company.

SCRUM

Scrum is an agile framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products. It is mainly used in software development but can be used with any projects or areas of life regardless of industry where complexity, decision making, and transparency are vital. We even use it in the BACKOFFICE, and it works wonders with correspondence and invoices, even marketing.

SPIRIT OF SCRUM

The spirit of Scrum is the small, highly flexible, and adaptive team that develops, releases, and operates products. The Scrum Team consists of a Product Owner, the Development Team, and a Scrum Master. Scrum Teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. Self-organizing teams choose how best to accomplish their work, rather than being directed by others in the organization. The team model in Scrum is designed to optimize flexibility, creativity, and productivity. Scrum Teams deliver products maximizing opportunities for feedback.

SCRUM MASTER

The Scrum Master is supporting Scrum by helping everyone understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values. Among many other tasks, the Scrum Master helps the Development Team to create high-value products.

EXPERIENCE IS KING

In Scrum, knowledge comes from experience, and authority is moved where the knowledge is. Scrum’s empirical process is based on observations of reality with great emphasis on mind-set and cultural shift to achieve business and organizational Agility.

PILLARS OF SCRUM

Transparency: This means that the team member presents the facts as they are, transparently. Trust is established, everyone strives and collectively collaborates for the common organizational objective.

Inspection: This is a continuous review by the Scrum Team. This constant inspection involves products, processes, aspects, practices, and ongoing improvements. Due to this process, the team adapts more quickly to new challenges viewing them as an opportunity to collaborate, clarify, and test out new demands in the project.

Adaptation: Adaptation is about continuous improvement and the ability to adapt based on the inspection. Are we progressing? The adjustment should eventually rely on one of the reasons for changing to Agile, such as an improvement in software quality and improved customer and employee satisfaction.

When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect are practiced and lived by the Scrum Team, the three Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come true. Team members learn and explore those values as they pursue Scrum roles, events, and artifacts.

SCRUM EVENTS

Sprint Planning
Daily Scrum
Sprint Review
Sprint Retrospective

Scrum events are used to create consistency to meet and share information and provide feedback. All events are for a fixed duration and are designed to enable transparency and inspection. Once a Sprint begins, its length is settled. Length and tasks cannot be changed. Other events are flexible and end whenever the aim of the event is accomplished for best time management.

THE PLANNING

Sprint planning is an event when the team determines the product backlog items they will work on during the Sprint and review their plan for completing those tasks.

HEART OF SCRUM

The heart of Scrum is a Sprint, a fixed duration event, our favorite in 2 weeks, in which a releasable part of the developed product is created. Sprints should have the same length with a new Sprint starting immediately after the conclusion of the previous Sprint.

Sprints contain and consist of the Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, the development work, the Sprint Review, and the Sprint Retrospective.

SCRUM GUIDE

THE REVIEW

A Sprint Review is held at the end of the Sprint to access the progress and to modify the Product Backlog if needed. This is an informal meeting, which is focused on feedback and collaboration. The Development Team discusses what went well, what problems arose, and how they have overcome them; they also agree on what to do next, schedule, budget, functionality of the product.

THE RETRO

GLAD-SAD-MAD

The Sprint Retrospective -after the Sprint review- is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to reflect and create a plan for improvements for the next Sprint, including work- relationships, process, and tools; to make the team more productive and prosperous for the next Sprint.

SCRUM ARTIFACTS

An artifact is something that we make, either a tool that solves a problem or a work of art that inspires us. Scrum describes three primary artifacts: the Product Backlog, the Sprint Backlog, and the Product Increment.

The Scrum Master’s job is to teach, persuade, and shift the Scrum Team and the organization to increase the transparency of artifacts. Rome was not built in a day, and the same applies to processes. Still, there is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time. So dive in and start that first bite.