Agile Concepts
Page 4
Sprint Planning Meeting
Sprint planning meeting associates with agenda of identifying tasks and resource estimations for subsequent sprint. Sprint planning meeting is attended by the Scrum master, Product owners, Scrum team, and other interested parties. During sprint planning meeting, product owner describes tasks from product backlog list and describes highest priority to the team. This meeting provides a scope for Scrum team to question and get clarification about different features raised from product backlog and sprint backlog list. Scrum team along with product owners defines sprint goal, which is a short description of what the sprint will attempt to achieve.
Sprint Requirement Meeting
Sprint requirement analysis meeting associates with agenda of product owner going through list of requirements in product backlog list and providing higher level explanation. Sprint requirement analysis meeting is attended by the Scrum master, Product owners, Scrum team, and other interested parties. This meeting provides a scope for Scrum team to question and get clarification about different features raised from product backlog and sprint backlog list. In Industry practice, sprint analysis meeting is a part of sprint planning meeting.
Sprint Commitment Meeting
Scope of Sprint commitment meeting is to review sprint goals by considering resource availability, risk factors involved, application dependencies and any other factors. After considering dependent variables for sprint release, Scrum master prepares a list of scrum tasks which Scrum team will be committed for that particular sprint. After negotiation between Scrum team and management, final goals list also called as commitment list are framed for the subsequent sprint.
Daily Status Meeting
Standup meetings are conducted every day by Scrum master to drive a project with pin point focus on sprint goals. This meeting helps to track daily updates of sprint tasks, calculate project velocity, and drive the team in a correct direction. Standup meetings are generally short and sweet, 15 -20 min duration. Meetings are typically conducted at the same location and at the same time everyday. Ideally meetings are conducted during early business hours, which facilitate to utilize rest of the business hours effectively.
Key Players of Scrum
A Scrum process includes Scrum master, Scrum team which includes development team and testers, Product Owners, Customers, and Marketing. Scrum master is a chief coordinator of the project. His job is to facilitate lucid communication flow across the system. Product owners also called as business owners are responsible for designing product. Scrum team includes both developers and testers. Customers and marketing folks will also participate actively in Scrum meetings and day-to-day business meetings.
Duties of Business Owner - Scrum Methodology
Product owners also called as business owners are responsible for designing product. Product owners design products assuming business interest and technical feasibilities. Product owners prepare high level requirement documents and add it to backlog list. Product owner along with Scrum master is responsible to maintain and update backlog lists. In Industry, product owners generally hold accountable for a result of product commercial success.
Duties of Scrum Master - Scrum Methodology
Scrum master is a chief coordinator of the project. His job is to facilitate lucid communication flow across the system. Scrum master acts as a point of contact for business team [Business owners / Product owners/ Marketing/ Customers] and scrum team [developer/ testers/ Team leads]. Scrum master validates the project practices and its compliance with mandatory practices of Scrum. Scrum master organizes sprint planning meetings, requirement analysis meetings, and sprint commitment meetings. He also update backlog items, identify project risks and coordinate requirement changes. Scrum master conducts daily standup meetings which are used to track project on day-to-day basis.
Duties of Scrum Team - Scrum Methodology
Scrum team includes both developers and testers. In sprint planning meeting, based on the requirements in the backlog list, Scrum team estimates the effort. After receiving high level requirements, Scrum team break down the high level tasks into smaller tasks and allocate suitable resources. Scrum team frames dynamic solutions during their product development. Scrum team needs to play strategic role during sprint planning meetings, sprint requirement analysis meeting and sprint commitment meetings. Scrum team place a pivotal role in identify various risk factors and their impacts. Scrum team updates their task status to scrum master in day-day standup meeting.
Duties of Marketing - Scrum Methodology
Customers and marketing folks will also participate actively in Scrum meetings and day-to-day business meetings. This kind of participations reduces the problem of ‘This is not what I expect’…. thereby reduces re-factoring cost. Customer/Marketing participations enables the flexibility of changing the requirements on the fly, unlike conventional software development methodology. Management is in charge of final decision for charters, standards and conventions to be followed in projects.
Advantages of Scrum Methodology
Scrum methodology independent of any engineering practice, can be adopted in any organization. Scrum can be adopted both in a new project and an existing project. Scrum salient feature like: Iterative development, high level accountability, small teams, Regular builds, Configuration management, and frequent monitoring, helps in developing a robust system.
Common Mistakes in Scrum – Lack of Communication
Communication plays a vital role while practicing Scrum. Communication between project members, stake holders, different scrum teams, and marketing members plays a vital role in successful implementation of the project. Scrum planning meeting, requirement analysis meeting, commitment meeting and daily standup meetings are useful in discussing about different dependent factors for a given sprint cycle. Lack of free communication flow among the team members will hamper the results of a project. Scrum master should take necessary precautions to make sure project day-to-day status, show stoppers, any hurdles, and interdependency must be communicated to all necessary game players.
Common Mistakes in Scrum – Failure in understanding big picture
Scrum teams are generally of size 4-20 people. A medium to large project has many scrum teams working on cross sprints to deliver a product focusing on business interest. Scrum team generally works on the modular deliverables forgetting about different other scrum teams and dependent factors associated with functional modules. Failure to understand the big picture of the project can raise many integration difficulties. Scrum masters needs to take care in order to overcome this kind of myopia.