Agile is a group of methodologies and a container for multiple frameworks, but more than that, Agile is a

mindset based on the following four themes:

 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

 Working software over comprehensive documentation
 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
 Responding to change over following a plan

Whilst thinking about Agile one can also reflect on the following 12 principles:

 Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable
software.
 Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for
the customer's competitive advantage.
 Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a
preference to the shorter timescale.
 Businesspeople and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
 Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need,
 and trust them to get the job done.
 The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development
team is face-to-face conversation.
 Working software is the primary measure of progress.
 Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should
be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
 Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
 Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
 The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
 At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts
its behavior accordingly.

Scrum - lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through
adaptive solutions for complex problems. Scrum is the most commonly used Agile framework (over 66%
of teams using Agile are using Scrum). Scrum has two parts to its theoretical knowledge base – Lean
Thinking and Empiricism.

Lean thinking – part of the Scrum theoretical knowledge base, a subset of Lean philosophy, as
popularized by the Toyota automotive company, Lean thinking focuses on both eliminating waste
(process waiting time, no value activities, etc) and on continuous improvement (small, evolutionary,
constant, changes).

Empiricism – part of the Scrum theoretical knowledge base, it represents practice derived from
experience as well as making decisions based on what is observed – an approach in which only the past
is accepted as certain and in which decisions are based on observation, experience and
experimentation. Empiricism has three pillars: transparency, inspection and adaptation.

Transparency - One of the three pillars of Scrum, representing the practice of keeping the work being
done legible and visible, that work consisting of the product backlog, sprint backlog, and increment (ie
Scrum Artifacts). This pillar of Scrum also serves the role of enabling inspection to take place.

Inspection - One of the three pillars of Scrum, representing the practice of making sure that the product
backlog, sprint backlog, and increment (ie Scrum Artifacts) are conforming to an agreed upon standard
of quality and that the progress towards the team goals is as expected.
Adaptation – One of the three pillars of Scrum, representing the practice of making sure that whenever
there is any deviation of the process (outside agreed-upon limits) or in the quality of the resulting
product, the process being applied or materials being used is changed, but only according to the results
of the Inspection cycle.

Scrum values are Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect and Courage.

The Scrum Team commits to achieving its goals and to supporting each other. Their primary focus is on
the work of the Sprint to make the best possible progress toward these goals. The Scrum Team and its
stakeholders are open about the work and the challenges. Scrum Team members respect each other to
be capable, independent people, and are respected as such by the people with whom they work. The
Scrum Team members have the courage to do the right thing, to work on tough problems.

Scrum recognized three responsibilities:

Development Team – Role within a Scrum Team accountable for managing, organizing and doing all
development work required to create a releasable Increment of product every Sprint.

Product Owner – Role in Scrum accountable for maximizing the value of a product, primarily by
incrementally managing and expressing business and functional expectations for a product to the
Development Team(s).

Scrum Master – Role within a Scrum Team accountable for guiding, coaching, teaching and assisting a
Scrum Team and its environments in a proper understanding and use of Scrum.

Scrum Events:

Sprint – Scrum Event that is time-boxed to one month or less, that serves as a container for the other
Scrum events and activities. Sprints are done consecutively, without intermediate gaps.

Sprint Planning – Scrum Event that is time-boxed to 8 hours, or less, to start a Sprint. It serves for the
Scrum Team to inspect the work from the Product Backlog that’s most valuable to be done next and
design that work into Sprint backlog.

Daily Scrum – a daily meeting usually hosted by the Scrum master, although she/he is not a mandatory
participant. The meeting is for the development team to talk about the work they’ve done so far and to
plan out the day’s work ahead, highlighting any impediments (an obstacle that reduces an Agile team’s
productivity or prevents them from completing an Agile project altogether) for the Scrum Master to
assist them with. This optimizes team collaboration and performance. The Daily Scrum is held at the
same time and place each day to reduce complexity.

Note: This is not a status meeting.

Backlog refinement – a meeting on which the Scrum team organizes the backlog to make sure it’s ready
for the next sprint or iteration. The activities often done this meeting (the list is intentionally
incomplete):

 Removes unnecessary user stories

 Creates new user stories based on user feedback
 Prioritizes features that must be included in the next sprint

Sprint Review – Scrum Event that is set to a time-boxed of 4 hours, or less, to conclude the development
work of a Sprint. It serves for the Scrum Team and the stakeholders to inspect the Increment of product
resulting from the Sprint, assess the impact of the work performed on overall progress and update the
Product backlog in order to maximize the value of the next period.
Sprint Retrospective – Scrum Event that is set to a time-box of 3 hours, or less, to end a Sprint. It serves
for the Scrum Team to inspect the past Sprint and plan for improvements to be enacted during the next
Sprint.

Scrum has three artifacts and three respective commitments:

Product Backlog - a list of new product features, updates, bug fixes, etc. that are bringing value to the
user and customers (internal and external). After every iteration, the backlog is regularly updated with
user suggestions and new features. During each iteration, the product owner constantly updates and
reprioritizes the backlog where necessary. Items on the product backlog are called product backlog
items and they are divided as follows: Epic – largest level work item (in our case group of customers
and/or high level items of work that would take a lot of time); Feature – lower level work item, nested
under Epics, representing a value stream item that needs to be worked on; User story – very low level
work item, nested under Features, needs to be representative of tech stream/customer specific goals;
Task – lowest level work item (in our case), serves to represent smallest chunks of work needed to be
done in order to complete the user story.

Product Goal - it describes a future state of the product which can serve as a target for the
Scrum Team to plan against. The Product Goal is in the Product Backlog. The rest of the Product
Backlog emerges to define “what” will fulfill the Product Goal.

Sprint Backlog – an ordered list that provides an overview of work needed to realize a Sprint’s goal.
Managed by the Development team.

Sprint Goal - a short expression of the purpose of a Sprint, often a business problem that is
addressed.

Increment: an Artifact that defines the complete and valuable work produced by the Development Team
during a Sprint. The sum of all Increments form a product.

Definition of Done: a shared understanding of expectations that the Increment must live up to in
order to be called done and complete. Managed by the Development Team.