Intro to Scrum

Why, What and How

Definition of Scrumon Dictionary.com

Noun1. a Rugby play in which, typically, three members of each team line up opposite one another with a group of two and a group of three players behind them, making an eight-person, three-two-three formation on each side; the ball is then rolled between the opposing front lines, the players of which stand with arms around a teammate's waist, meeting the opponent shoulder to shoulder, and attempt to kick the ball backward to a teammate.

2.British. a place or situation of confusion and racket; hubbub.

Verb (used without object), scrummed, scrumming.3.to engage in a scrum.

Science behind Scrum

• Fight for possession - Video– Your team is the Red team– Ball is your scope of work– Green team is the reality (disruptions,

impediments, the unknown and unexpected, etc.)

Initial idea of Scrum

“The “relay race” approach to product development may conflict with the goals of maximum speed and flexibility. Instead a holistic or “rugby” approach - where a team tries to go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth - may better serve today’s competitive requirements.”

Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, “The New New Product Development Game”,  Harvard Business Review, January 1986.

6 Characteristics of Leading Companies

• Built-in Stability• Self-organizing project teams• Overlapping development phases• “Multilearning”• Subtle control• Organizational transfer of learning

Source: “The New New Product Development Game” by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka

Approaches to phases of development

• Under the old approach, a product development process moved like a relay race, with one group of functional specialists passing the baton to the next group. The project went sequentially from phase to phase: concept development, feasibility testing, product design, development process, pilot production, and final production.Under this method, functions were specialized and segmented: the marketing people examined customer needs and perceptions in developing product concepts; the R&D engineers selected the appropriate design; the production engineers put it into shape; and other functional specialists carried the baton at different stages of the race.

Source: “The New New Product Development Game” by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka

Business Case

• The Honda City project team, whose members’ average age was 27, had these instructions from management: to develop “the kind of car that the youth segment would like to drive.”

• The team was asked to develop a car with two competitive features for the youth segment: efficiency in resources and fuel, and uncompromising quality at a low price.

• They started with the scaled-down version of Honda’s best-selling Civic model, but made a totally new concept. Convinced that an evolution toward a “machine minimum, human maximum” concept was inevitable, they challenged the prevailing idea that a car should be long and low and designed a “short and tall” car.

Source: “The New New Product Development Game” by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka

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History of “Scrum”• Takeuchi and Nonaka, two acknowledged management thinkers and accomplished professors, wrote a groundbreaking paper ‘The New New

Product Development Game’ and published it in Harvard Business Review in 1986. With the term ‘Scrum’ Nonaka and Takeuchi referred to the game of rugby to stress the importance of teams and some analogies between a team sport like rugby and being successful in the game of new product development. The research described in their paper showed that outstanding performance in the development of new, complex products is achieved when teams, as small and self-organizing units of people, are fed with objectives, not with tasks. The best teams are those that are given direction within which they have room to devise their own tactics on how to best head towards their joint objective. Teams require autonomy to achieve excellence.

The Scrum framework for software development implements the principles described in this paper for developing and sustaining complex software products.

• Based on this paper Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber conceived the Scrum process in the early 90’s. They codified Scrum in 1995 in order to present it at the Oopsla conference in Austin, Texas (US) and published the paper “SCRUM Software Development Process”.While in the process of developing and using early versions of Scrum, Ken asked Professor Babatunde A. Ogunnaike Tunde, a famous process control research engineer, to look at software development processes. Tunde investigated several commercial software-development methodologies to conclude that the waterfall and predictive process is not a good fit for the work of software development. He confirmed the empirical approach of Scrum to be the preferred process.Empiricism is used for complex work where more is unknown than is known and predictions have little value given a high rate of change and uncertainty.Scrum was first tried and refined at Individual, Inc., Fidelity Investments, and IDX (now GE Medical).

• February 2001 - Jeff and Ken were amongst the 17 software development leaders creating the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.Following the Agile Manifesto, the Agile Alliance was founded with Ken Schwaber being its first chairman.

• 2001 - much inspired by Kent Beck, Ken Schwaber co-authored the first book on Scrum with Mike Beedle, Agile Software Development with Scrum.• 2002 - Ken Schwaber founded the Scrum Alliance with Mike Cohn and Esther Derby, with Ken chairing the organization. In the years to follow the

highly successful Certified Scrum Master programs and its derivatives were created and launched.• 2006 - Jeff Sutherland created his own company, Scrum.inc, while continuing to offer and teach the Certified Scrum courses.• 2009 - Ken left the Scrum Alliance, and founded Scrum.org to further improve the quality and effectiveness of Scrum, mainly through the Professional

Scrum series.• 2010 - With the first publication of the Scrum Guide, and its incremental updates in 2011 and 2013, Jeff and Ken established the globally recognized

body of knowledge of Scrum.

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Source: Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics by Ralph Stacey in Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle.

Empiricism is used for complex work where more is unknown than is known and predictions have little value given a high rate of change and uncertainty.Software development is proven to be complex work so the empirical approach of Scrum should be the preferred process, according to research of professor Tunde.

Definition of Agile

Full Definition of AGILE1: marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace <an agile dancer>2: having a quick resourceful and adaptable character <an agile mind>

 - Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Agile Manifesto

Process and toolsIndividuals and interactions over

Following a planResponding to change over

Comprehensive documentationWorking software over

Contract negotiation

Customer collaboration over

Source: http://agilemanifesto.org/

12 Principles of Agile Manifesto1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer

through early and continuous deliveryof valuable software.

2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.

8. Agile processes promote sustainable

development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Source: http://agilemanifesto.org/

Scrum in 100 words or less

•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. Teams self-organize to

determine the best way to deliver the highest priority features.•The whole software development lifecycle (SDLC) is done

in one Sprint.•Every two weeks to a month anyone can see real working

software and decide to release it as is or continue to enhance it for another sprint.

Scrum is

• Easy to understand• Human focused• Value focused• About learning• About people

Scrum is NOT

• Undisciplined• Project Management• Methodology• Trivial to implement• Process focused• Productivity focused• The final goal• About tools

NOT

Scrum has been used by:• Microsoft• Yahoo• Google• Electronic Arts• High Moon Studios• Lockheed Martin• Philips• Siemens• Nokia• Capital One• BBC• Intuit

• Nielsen Media• First American Real Estate• BMC Software• Ipswitch• John Deere• Lexis Nexis• Sabre• Salesforce.com• Time Warner• Turner Broadcasting• Oce

Source: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum/a-reusable-scrum-presentation

Scrum has been used for:

Commercial softwareIn-house developmentContract developmentFixed-price projectsFinancial applicationsISO 9001-certified applicationsEmbedded systems24x7 systems with 99.999% uptime requirements

Video game developmentFDA-approved, life-critical systemsSatellite-control softwareWebsitesHandheld softwareMobile phonesNetwork switching applicationsISV applicationsSome of the largest applications in use

Source: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum/a-reusable-scrum-presentation

Scrum in other industriesScrum is used successfully in:Army – example General McChrystal

EducationGovernmentVenture capitalismAutomotive designRetailSales

MarketingManagementProduct designDesign…

Why Scrum?

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”- Niels Bohr, Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory,

for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.

Traditional processes (e.g. Waterfall) depend on prediction over long time scales.They guess wrong what is needed.They miss the mark about when it will be

done.

What is Scrum?• Scrum is a time boxed, iterative approach to software delivery

that builds software incrementally from the start of the project, instead of trying to deliver it all at once near the end of project.

• Scrum lays out the vision and then nurtures the project resources to do the best possible to achieve the plan and fulfill the vision.

• Scrum is the heart of possible.• Scrum’s heart is self-organization.

How does Scrum work?

• Frequent inspection and adaption• Emergence of requirement, technologies and

team’s capabilities.• Self-organization and adaption in response to

what emerges using feedback• Incremental emergence• Dealing with reality, not internal artifacts• Mutual coordination

Scrum Sprint CycleScrum Framework

Scrum Framework

•3 ROLES

•4 CEREMONIES

•4 ARTIFACTS

Product Owner Scrum Master Development Team

Sprint Planning Daily Scrum Meeting Sprint Review Sprint Retrospective Backlog Refinement

(ExGrooming)??? Product Backlog Sprint Backlog Increment Burndown Chart

Product Owner• One person• Maximizes ROI – Responsible for value and ROI• Defines the product features based on the Product Vision• Ensures that one set of requirements drives the development

and that there is no confusion from multiple bosses, different opinions and interference from outside.

• “The Answer Man” to the Development Team during the sprint.• Prioritizes features according to business value• Adjusts features and priorities every iteration, if needed.• Decides which PBIs are releasable.• Accepts or rejects work

Product VisionEvery Scrum project needs a product vision that acts as the project’s true north, sets the direction and guides the Scrum team. It is the overarching goal everyone must share – Product Owner, Scrum Master, team, management, customers and other stakeholders.

“The minimum plan necessary to start a Scrum project consists of a vision and a Product Backlog. The vision describes why the project is being undertaken and what the desired end state is.” - Ken Schwaber 2004

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” - Jonathan Swift

It captures the essence of the product – the critical information we must know to develop and launch a winning product.Developing an effective product vision entails carefully answering the following questions: 1. Who is going to buy the product?2. Who is the target customer? 3. Which customer needs will the product address? 4. Which product attributes are critical to satisfy the needs selected, and therefore for the success of the

product? 5. How does the product compare against existing products, both from competitors and the same

company?6. What are the product’s unique selling points? 7. What is the target timeframe and budget to develop and launch the product?

Source: https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2009/january/the-product-vision

Scrum Master• Team’s servant leader• Responsible for enacting Scrum values and practices• Sustains culture and environment to optimize ROI• Removes obstacles to progress (impediments)• Ensures that the team is fully functional and

productive• Enables close cooperation across all roles and

functions• Shields the team from internal interferences• May not direct team, nor tell them what to do• Organizes Sprint Planning• Facilitates Daily Scrum Meetings

Development TeamSuperheroes, because:1. Superheroes never give up2. Superheroes get the job done3. Superheroes are the best at that they do4. Superheroes have a crystal clear purpose5. Superheroes' goal is not to be perfect, but to pursuit perfection6. Superheroes help others7. Superheroes can do it by themselves, but they're more powerful in teams8. Superheroes' real strength comes not from their powers, but from their

character9. Superheroes achieve great feats10. Superheroes don't seek glory, but they receive it anyway

Development Team

• Estimates, selects and develops work items• Team is cross-functional with all talents necessary

to build a potentially shippable increment of product

• Manage time-boxed development iteration to its forecast

• Stable team membership over time• Delivers a potentially shippable increment of

product to the Product Owner once per sprint

Scrum Framework

•3 ROLES

•4 CEREMONIES

•4 ARTIFACTS

Product Owner Scrum Master Development Team

Sprint Planning Daily Scrum Meeting Sprint Review Sprint Retrospective (Backlog Refinement -

exGrooming)??? Product Backlog Sprint Backlog Increment Burndown Chart

Sprint Planning• Two parts (1-4 hours, depending on the length of the sprint)• Product Owner must be prepared with adequate Product Backlog, if

not… go to the beach!!!• Team selects the items from the Product Backlog they can commit to

complete.• Team agrees on how to implement the product functionality into the

product increment in the next Sprint, thus creating a Sprint Backlog• Team defines Sprint Goal• Estimates may be revised during the meeting• High-level design is considered and development team defines PBI

implementation strategy

Sprint planning meeting

Sprint prioritization

• Analyze and evaluate product backlog

• Select sprint goal

Sprint planning

• Decide how to achieve sprint goal (design)

• Create sprint backlog (tasks) from product backlog items (user stories / features)

• (Re)Estimate sprint backlog

Sprintgoal

Sprintbacklog

Business conditions

Team capacity

Product backlog

Technology

Current product

Product Backlog into Sprint BacklogExample

As a vacation planner, I want to see photos of the hotels.

Code the middle tier (8)Code the user interface (4)Write test fixtures (4)Code the foo class (6)Update performance tests (4)

Sprint Goal

• The Team commits to the Team’s Sprint Goal!• Sprint Goal can be any coherence that causes

the Development Team to work together rather than on separate initiatives.

• The Sprint Goal gives the Development Team some flexibility regarding the functionality implemented within the sprint.

Sprint Goal Examples

Database Application

Make the application run on SQL Server in addition to Oracle.

Financial services

Support more technical indicators than company ABC with real-time, streaming data.

Life Sciences

Support features necessary for population genetics studies.

Daily Scrum Meeting• DAILY!!!• 15min• Stand up!• It helps avoid unnecessary meetings• Not for problem solving (focus is on visibility)• Whole world is invited, but only team members can talk (Development Team,

Scrum Master and Product Owner)• Everyone answers 3 question:

1. What did I do yesterday? (…that helped Development Team meet the Sprint Goal?)2. What will I do today? (…to help Development Team reach the Sprint Goal?)3. Do I have anything in my way? (Do I see any impediments that prevent me of

Development Team to reach the Sprint Goal?)• These are not status for the Scrum Master. They are commitments in front of

peers

Sprint Review• Team presents what it accomplished during the Sprint.• “Are we happy with the overall results so far?”• Presentation is in the form of demo of new features, fixed defects and/or underlying

software architecture.• Presented on the equipment where it was developed and tested• Presented by Development Team for Product Owner, other stakeholders and end-

users• Only DONE items are presented. Definition of Done (DoD) is defined by the team

and it represents the reporting tool about what items are ready to potentially be shipped. It can represent the steps for each items to go through (design, dev, code review, unit test, functional test, regression test, staging, deployment test, etc.), things they need to include (technical description, user manual, release note, etc.),…

• Everyone is invited• Max 1 hour DEMO presentation• NO POWER POINT!!!

Sprint Retrospective• We’re not “Scrumming” without the process improvement each Sprint.• Done after every Sprint• Whole team participate:

– Development Team– Scrum Master– Product Owner (2 schools of thought)

• Inspect how the last Sprint went in regards to people, relationships, process and tools.

• Whole team gathers and discusses what they would like to:– Start doing– Stop doing– Continue doing

• Identify and order the major items that went well and potential improvements.• As a conclusion, Action plan is made to implement the wanted changes of highest

priority and to continuously repeat the wanted existing once.

Product Backlog Refinement (ExGrooming)

• Most of the Product Backlog should be prepared before Sprint planning.• Only READY PBIs can be candidates for Sprint Planning. PBI is Ready if it

has enough details so that all team members understand what it is and they can all estimate it.

• Unprepared Product Backlog makes for the terrible meetings. It can demotivate and slow down the entire Team.

• PBIs are prepared in the Product Backlog Refinement meeting. This meeting can be scheduled weekly or more frequently where needed.

• It is Product Owner’s responsibility to present Product Backlog with enabling specifications.

• The Development Team estimates the PBIs.• Product Backlog Refinement is scheduled in advance – not on an interrupt

bases.

Planning Poker - How it’s done?

Planning Poker

• Wideband Delphi estimation technique that was adjusted.

• It gives the visibility of differences.• Drives to consensus• Breaks down linear thinking• Everybody participates• It avoids “coloring” of estimates by few key

members of Team (architects, team lead, etc.)• It speeds up estimation process

Source: https://www.crisp.se/bocker-och-produkter/planning-poker

Scrum Framework

•3 ROLES

•4 CEREMONIES

•4 ARTIFACTS

Product Owner Scrum Master Development Team

Sprint Planning Daily Scrum Meeting Sprint Review Sprint Retrospective (Backlog Refinement -

exGrooming) Product Backlog Sprint Backlog Increment Burndown Chart

Product Backlog

• A good product backlog supports communication between the Development Team, Product Owner and other stakeholders.

• Efficient communication happens face-to-face – not in writing.

• The form of the Product Backlog Items can support more or less structured communication and therefore can have a BIG impact on the team’s Velocity.

Product Backlog• Product Backlog is a list of all types of requests: User Stories,

use cases, defects, enhancements and technical issues.• PBIs are mostly in Customer’s space – what, not how! • Product Owner is responsible for ordering PBIs, prioritizing

them.• PBIs can be placeholders that are later defined as work.• Emergent, ordered, estimated – not categorized• Higher Product Backlog Items have more details and have

higher priority than lower once.• One list per product, can be for multiple teams• Maintained and posted visibly• Derived from Business Plan, Marketing, Sales, Support,

Product Management and/or Vision Statement

Product Backlog

Sprint Backlog• Sprint Backlog is a highly visible, real-time picture of the work that the Development Team plans to

accomplish during the Sprint and it belongs solely to the Development Team.

• Sprint Backlog is the set of Product Backlog Items selected for the sprint, plus a plan for delivery of product increment and realizing the sprint goal.

• Individuals sign-up for the work of their own choosing!

• WORK IS NEVER ASSIGNED!

• This plan has enough details so that changes in progress can be understood in the Daily Scrum.

• The Development Team can modify the Sprint Backlog throughout the Sprint, where and if necessary.• This emergence occurs as Development Team works through the plan and learns more about the work

needed to achieve Sprint Goal.

• ONLY Development Team can change its Sprint Backlog during the Sprint!

• As new work is required from the Product Backlog, the Development Team adds it to the Sprint Backlog. As work from the Product Backlog is performed or completed, the estimated work remaining in Product Backlog is updated.

No changes during Sprint!

• Plan sprint durations around how long you can commit to keeping change out of the sprint

Change

Scrum Board

Product Increment

• The Increment or Potentially Shippable Increment (PSI) is the sum of all the Product Backlog items completed during the Sprint (and all previous Sprints that haven’t yet been shipped). – definition of the Release

• At the end of Sprint the Increment must be complete, according to the Scrum team’s Definition of Done (DoD), and in a usable form (shippable) regardless if the Product Owner decides to actually release it or not.

Burn down Chart• It is wasteful to track time consumed completing a User Story

or doing a Task.• Time records are waste of time!• Focus should be on achieving the end date (end of Sprint)

while reaching the Sprint Goal.• Burn down Charts are the central “Project Management”

tool.• Focus is on delivery!• Cost management comes from estimations.• Velocity estimations (Capacity) comes from Burn down Chart.

Burn down Chart• We shouldn’t care where we have been, since the time

spent is the time we can never recover. We should care about the time we will spend in the future, which is based on some form of estimate.

• These estimates should be good enough to give Product Owner comfort that she/he can count on Development Team’s forecast.

• Over time Development Team becomes better and better at predicting. Burn down chart is also used as a training tool for the team and Scrum Master’s tool for inspection whether the Team’s learning is on track.

Burn down Chart - Examples

Time boxing• Sprint is the main unit of time boxing.• Sprint is a time for the Development Team to work undisturbed.• Having fixed time boxes establishes rhythm which helps set expectations

over time – not only for the team but for the stakeholders, Product Owner and Management as well.

• If Sprint lasts longer than expected, stakeholders and Product Owner might suspect the team is guessing its work.

• It also helps the team to estimate their work better. Sprint when time boxed gives them a reference point, so that they can learn and improve their estimates and team capacity estimate over time.

• Time boxing is also used for all Scrum Ceremonies so that the time is not wasted, but rather to get the Team to be concise and on point. It takes several Sprints for the Team to fit into assigned Time boxes and use this time with quality.

Scalability of Scrum• Typical individual team is 7 ± 2 people– Scalability comes from team of teams

• Factors in scaling– Type of application– Team size– Team dispersion– Project duration

• Scrum has been used on multiple 500+ person projects

Scalability of Scrum

• There are 2 two leading frameworks used for scaling Agile:– Scaled Agile Framework – SAF– Large Scale Scrum – LeSS

• Both of them are using some form of Scrum of Scrums model

The power of MOTIVATIONMOTIVATION

Online training - Introduction to Scrum: http://www.scrumtrainingseries.com/