International Scrum Master Foundation: 3.0 Scrum Framework

done increment

When we are dealing with complexity and unpredictability, focus is essential in order to get anything meaningful done. Because we focus on only a few things at a time, we deliver the most valuable items sooner. The team should focus on having a Done increment at least by the end of every sprint.

stakeholder requirements

Describes the needs of stakeholders that must be met in order to achieve the business requirements. They may serve as a bridge between business and solution requirements.

empirical approach

Empirical approach is to work in a way that is based on facts, experiences, and evidence. In particular, progress is based on observations of real events, not on plans based on large amount of upfront requirements.

to do

First, the company plans WHAT they need (product backlog), and what the delivery expectation is over time (release plan). In agile, this is living document with changes being made all the time. This is one of the big advantages compared to the waterfall method as agile adapts to changes much more easily.

Self-organization

Focuses on today's workers, who deliver significantly greater value when self-organized. This results in better team buy-in and shared ownership; and an innovative and creative environment, which is more conducive for growth.

Empirical Process Control

An Empirical Process Control model helps make decisions based on observation and experimentation rather than on detailed upfront planning. It relies on the three main ideas of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

Sprint planning session

A meeting with the team to select a set of work from the product backlog to deliver during a sprint

sprint

A set period of time, normally two to four weeks, during which specific work must be completed and made ready for review when using Scrum methods

done

After the sprint, a sprint review meeting is held giving the scrum product owner time to check if all of the committed user stories are complete and implemented correctly. A sprint retrospective meeting is conducted to check and improve the project work processes - what was done well during the sprint, what should continue as it is, and what should be improved.

5 Scrum Values

Courage, Focus, Commitment, Respect, Openess

scrum development team

Cross-functional, self-organizing/self-managing, without externally assigned roles Negotiates commitments with product owner Has autonomy regarding how to reach commitments Intensely collaborative Avoids splitting team, full-time membership 7 +/- 2 members

Adaptation

In the world of agile, we always embrace and adapt to changes, so that we can constantly improve. Adaptation means that we change what does not work or what could work better. It means that we constantly run small experiments, keep what is working, and change something in case of failure.

Scrum Artifacts

Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Burndown Charts

Inspection

Scrum artifacts must be frequently inspected, as well as the progress towards a goal to detect undesirable deviations.

Scrum stories

Scrum includes a practice of testing and implementing new requirements, known as stories, to make sure something specific gets done and released after each sprint.

update product backlog

The first is called the WHAT-meeting during which the product owner explains the user stories in the product backlog. The development team makes estimates and arrangements for the workload based on the product backlog list.

scrum product owner

The person responsible for the business value of the project and for deciding what work to do and in what order, as documented in the product backlog.

Scrum Master Role

The person who coordinates all scrum activities. focus is on the health of the development team and the effective use of scrum. Having a role that focuses on teaching, facilitating, and coaching demonstrates a respect for people and teams and their capacity for growth.

doing

The software products are built in sprints (normally 2-4 weeks fixed time). The sprint starts with two planning sessions to define what goes into the sprint - the WHAT meeting and the HOW meeting. Sprint planning meeting is a combination of these two meetings. In the WHAT meeting, the development team commits to the user stories from the scrum product backlog. In the HOW meeting, the team breaks the user stories into smaller and concrete tasks. Next, the coding, testing, documentation, etc, begins.

sprint review session

The sprint review looks at the product, but it is also important to look at how the team have worked during the sprint; hence, the next thing to do is to conduct a sprint retrospective. This focuses on how the team is working, what went well, what was not so good, what shall the team keep doing, what shall they stop doing, and an action list is created.

Value-based Prioritization

This principle highlights the focus of Scrum to deliver maximum business value, from early in the project and continuing throughout.

Time-boxing

Time-boxing refers to setting short periods of time for work to be done. If the work undertaken remains incomplete at the end of the Time-box, it is moved into a subsequent Time-box. Time-boxes provide the structure needed for Scrum projects, which have an element of uncertainty, are dynamic in nature, and are prone to frequent changes.

Transparency

Transparency in scrum can be realized by tools such as product backlog, task boards and burn down charts, daily stand-ups, retrospectives, definition of done, sprint reviews, etc. These are used to transfer the flow of work through a cross-functional team. This is one of the key advantages in scrum - allowing visibility about the progress of the work done by the team. In other words, when the team is achieving its goal, those responsible for it can be recognized and appreciated for the efforts.

Done increment

agreed to small portion

Iterative Development

an approach to system development in which the system is "grown" piece by piece through multiple iterations. emphasizes how to better manage changes and build products that satisfy customer needs. It also delineates the product owner's and organization's responsibilities related to iterative development.

Time-boxed sprint events

create a sense of urgency and help us focus on the purpose of the event. describes how time is considered a limiting constraint in Scrum, and is used to help effectively manage project planning and execution. Time-boxed elements in scrum include sprints, daily scrum meetings, sprint planning meetings, and sprint review meetings.

Collaboration

focuses on the three core dimensions related to collaborative work: awareness, articulation, and appropriation. It also advocates project management as a shared value-creation process with teams working and interacting together to deliver the greatest value.

Self-Organization

focuses on today's workers, who deliver significantly greater value when self-organized. This results in better team buy-in and shared ownership; and an innovative and creative environment, which is more conducive for growth.

Value-based Prioritization

highlights the focus of scrum to deliver maximum business value, from early on in the project and continuing throughout.

velocity

is a measure of the amount of work a team can tackle during a single sprint and is the key metric in scrum. Velocity is calculated at the end of the sprint by totaling the points for all fully completed user stories.

repeating sequence

meetings, events, milestones

development team

owns the sprint backlog. Since they are the ones doing the work, they decide how much they can do in a sprint and how to do the work. This demonstrates respect for their knowledge and skills, as well as respect for working at a sustainable pace.

short fixed schedule

release cycles with adjustable scope known as sprints to address rapidly changing development needs. Each release can have multiple sprints. Each scrum project can have multiple release cycles.

epic(s)

scrum - An Epic can be defined as a big chunk of work that has one common objective. It could be a feature, customer request or business requirement. ... These details are defined in User Stories. An epic usually takes more than one sprint to complete.

Scrum events

sprint planning, sprint review, daily stand-up, sprint retro, etc

scrum master

the person in charge of a Scrum project—similar to a project manager.

cross-functional

which means as a whole it has all of the skills necessary to deliver a Done product increment. This promotes respect for everyone's experiences, skills, and ideas, as well as learning and growth.