The essence of SCRUM

How it copes with the product development challenges of a startup

Spyros Magiatis - November 2013

When you are a startup!agility is your only hope

Small ≠ Agile

Agility requires to act as one mind!

Knowing “WHY” !is important

Proxies don’t work!Product owner has to be the decision maker

Product vision and long term roadmap are equally important to backlog and sprints

Real life is not described in handbooks!Effort estimation is hard, team engagement is not given

If I were to keep one thing from the SCRUM process that would be demos

Don't write user stories as disguised specifications !Describe only ONE main flow, keep the rest for acceptance criteria

Be in your customers shoes!Use personas everywhere: demos, user stories etc…

You can’t go far without automated testing. Unit testing coverage →100%!Maintain a small yet representative set of integration tests

Agile product development

• Have a clear product vision

• Communicate your vision with your team

• Be persistent with the process

• Invest in software infrastructure

• Listen to your customers

• Adapt

Thank you

Spyros Magiatis - November 2013