SCRUM

MASTER
HandBook

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PART ONE
5 Important Types Of
Agile Methodology

Agile
Scrum,
Lean
Scaled agile
kanban
 AGILE
What is Agile?

The Agile methodology is a way to manage a

project by breaking it up into several phases.

It involves constant collaboration with stakeholders

and continuous improvement at every stage.

Once the work begins, teams cycle through a

process of planning, executing, and evaluating.
Advantages Of Agile?

Agile helps in giving a superior quality product

as an integrated part of the executed team
Agile is the best application for gaining
customer satisfaction by involving them in
planning phase.
It supports better control over project due to
its transparency and quality control features.
It reduces risk of failures as it is stated that any
project with agile methodology will never fail.
It is good for continuous improvement of agile
manifesto as a core principle.

Disadvantages Of Agile?

The predictability percentage is less for some

developers
It demands more time and commitments
Easily fall off track by project
Developers and clients ‘s greater demand.
 SCRUM
What is SCRUM?

Scrum is a
framework that helps teams work
together.

Scrum encourages teams to learn through

experiences, self-organize while working on a
problem, and reflect on their wins and losses to
continuously improve.

Scrum accounts for its accountabilities, events and

the rules that bind them. Transparency, inspection
and adaptation are the three pillars of scrum.
Advantages Of SCRUM?

It is good for delivering projects quickly and

efficiently.
Ensures effective time and money
Large projects can easily be dealt in
manageable sprints
Fast moving projects work well.

Disadvantages Of SCRUM?

Lack of a definite end date leads to creepy

scope
Can lead to failures when team is not
cooperative
Large framework can create problems
It can lead to failure when there is no
experience.
 LEAN
What is lean?

Lean methodology is a way of optimizing the

people, resources, effort, and energy of your
organization toward creating value for the
customer.

It is based on two guiding tenets, continuous

improvement and respect for people.

Lean consists of a process having an attempt to

reduce risk and waste and increasing the customer
values. It is the foundation to be applied across
many business areas
Advantages Of Lean?

It helps improving the efficiency

It reduces the wastes
It helps in enhancing productivity.
It accounts for less infrastructure.

Disadvantages Of Lean?

It offers lack of time

It has no proper strategy to be carried on
There are not enough buy-ins.
 SCALED
AGILE

What is Scaled Agile?

The Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) is a set of

organizational and workflow patterns for
implementing agile practices at an enterprise
scale. The framework is a body of knowledge that
includes structured guidance on roles and
responsibilities, how to plan and manage the
work, and values to uphold.
Advantages Of SAFE?

Faster time to market

It helps improving the efficiency
It reduces the wastes
It helps in enhancing productivity.
It accounts for less infrastructure.

Disadvantages Of SAFE?

No long-term planning.
Customized authority handling.
Nothing there to motivate employees for large
organizations.
 KANBAN

What is KanBan?

Kanban is a popular framework used to

implement agile and DevOps software
development.

It requires real-time communication of capacity

and full transparency of work. Work items are
represented visually on a kanban board, allowing
team members to see the state of every piece of
work at any time.
Advantages Of KanBan?

It effectively communicates visual practices.

High efficiency in response to marketing
developers.
Increase team collaboration
High transparency rates
No or less manual labor requirement.

Disadvantages Of KanBan?

It cannot be used as independent tool.

Not suitable for dynamic environments.
Not suitable when too much tasks are
interrelated.
Predictions of specific timelines become
difficult.
PART TWO
ROLES

Product owner
Scrum master
Scrum team
Stakeholders
Agile mentor
 PRODUCT
OWNER

Who is the product owner?

Product owner is a person, not a committee, who
is accountable for achieving the highest value of
product resulting from the scrum team.

The entire organization has to respect his decision

for their success. The only way to change the
product backlog is to convince him for a change.

What can he do?

Product owner is the communication hub among
the stakeholders, customers, business managers
and the whole developing team.

He makes sure to gain the business objective and

transfers a clear vision. The main responsibility of
the PO is to create a backlog and define user
stories.
He needs to confirm the fact that product backlog
will be a prioritize set of customer requirement. All
the queries must be addressed by PO on user
requirement.

Its role is very important for companies to move

an agile based product methodology.

He has to work with different customers, business

leaders, developmental teams, stakeholders and
project managers.
 SCRUM
MASTER
Who is Scrum Master?
A scrum master is the person responsible for
continuing smooth and efficient work in the scrum
process. It is the person responsible for sticking to
the scrum process in the company.

A SM helps everyone understand scrum theory

and practice within the organization and is
accountable for team’s effectiveness. They are
true leaders to serve scrum teams and larger
organizations.

What can he do?

A scrum master can implement scrum and
ensures each member sticks to the theory and
rules. He plays the role of servant leader for the
entire team. He is the one to facilitate scrum
implementation. A SM facilitates the team and PO
by
continuously responding to the changes. He
makes sure the team can quickly adopt changes
during the developmental process.

The scrum master is foremost responsible for

project blockage and progress implementation.
He also acts as a chain agent to develop a culture
adopting changes in the scrum.

This in turn increases the decision-making power

of the members.
 SCRUM
TEAM
Who is Scrum Team?
A Scrum Team is a collection of individuals
(typically between five and nine members) working
together to deliver the required product
increments.
The Scrum framework encourages a high level of
communication among team members, so that
the team can: Follow a common goal. adhere the
same norms and rules

What can it do?

The whole team is responsible for delivering high
quality work timely. Each member of the team
gets same reward for good work, never an
individual. They are empowered to explain what
results they will give at the end of sprint. They
have the power to distribute the work among
individuals and assign tasks in order to each
member of the team.
 STAKEHOLDERS
A stakeholder is anyone with a vested interest in
the product who is not part of the Scrum Team.

As Product Owner or Scrum Master, you can think

of stakeholders as anyone with an interest in or
an influence on the product.1

What can they do?

They can provide feedback on the end product

and help in providing insights on the product
increments. Typically, they are end user of the
product who can better provide the feedback. No
one can provide the incremental and iterative
approach except stakeholders.
 AGILE MENTOR
When an organization moves from traditional
working practices, they employ agile mentors. The
person is expert in agile practices and known as
agile mentor.

This position requires a person who holds a

coaching role outside the project team and should
be outside the organization.

What can he do?

Agile mentor holds the responsibility about the

principles of agile. He provides the tools through
training sessions that are used to implement agile
projects.

He is the one who guides the team through

different methodology and answer each question.
He can lead to organizational growth.
PART
THREE
Scrum Artifacts

Product roadmap
Product backlog
Release planning
Sprint backlog
Increment
 PRODUCT
ROADMAP
A product roadmap is a shared source of truth
that outlines the vision, direction, priorities, and
progress of a product over time.

It's a plan of action that aligns the organization

around short and long-term goals for the product
or project, and how they will be achieved.

There are many goals for a product roadmap.

Some of these includes

Explaining vision and strategy

Strategic execution in documented form
Internal stakeholder alignment
Discussion of scenario planning
Communication with stakeholders

The product roadmap main contents are

 Theme
Epics
Stories
Features

It should be clear that the product roadmap is a

group effort not an individual. Keep the
informational integrity and providing a good
environment is the best combination for product
map collaboration.
 PRODUCT
BACKLOG:
A product backlog is a prioritized list of
deliverables that should be implemented as part
of a project or product development.

It's a decision-making artifact that helps you

estimate, refine, and prioritize everything you
might sometime in the future want to complete.

Backlog is done by scrum teams that are ready for

selection of sprint planning events.

They refine the activities and provide degree of

transparency. it also includes new features, bug
fixes, infrastructure changes etc to achieve
specific goals.

It is a single authoritative source for a team to

work on.
 RELEASING
PLANNING:
Release planning enables organisations to make
informed investment decisions.

It sets expectations, aligns stakeholders and

development teams and it allows product people
to guide the work of the dev team.
SPRINT BACKLOG
The sprint backlog is a list of tasks identified by
the Scrum team to be completed during the
Scrum sprint.

During the sprint planning meeting, the team

selects some number of product backlog items,
usually in the form of user stories, and identifies
the tasks necessary to complete each user story.

Most teams also estimate how many hours each

task will take someone on the team to complete.
It's critical that the team selects the items and size
of the sprint backlog.

Because they are the people committing to

completing the tasks, they must be the people to
choose what they are committing to during the
Scrum sprint.
 INCREMENT
As described in the Scrum Guide, an Increment is
a concrete stepping stone toward the Product
Goal.

Each Increment is additive to all prior Increments

and thoroughly verified, ensuring that all
Increments work together. In order to provide
value, the Increment must be usable.
PART FOUR
Agile Ceremonies

Project planning
Release planning
Sprint planning
Daily standup
Sprint review
Retrospective
 PROJECT
PLANNING

Prjoect planning is a new, flexible way of

organizing future projects and adjusting to
changing requirements without generating waste.

An agile project plan is divided into releases and

sprints. Each release is broken down into several
iterations called sprints. Each sprint has a fixed
length, typically two weeks, and the team has a
predefined list of items to work through in each
sprint. The work items are called user stories
Project planning has designated resources and
defined stages. Some common steps are:
Look for project objectives
Gather the requirements
Define the scope
Explain dependencies between activities
Prepare the project budget

 RELEASE
PLANNING
The incremental releases of a product for product
management is called release planning. It is
different from traditional software. It doesn’t only
focus on major releases.

In this planning method we prepare for staged

releases. It helps to break down into several
sprints. Technical people make decisions
technically and business people make business
decisions.

The purpose of release planning within the Agile

methodology is to ensure the product is always
moving in the right direction and that logical
releases are frequently happening
SPRINT PLANNING
Sprint planning is an event in scrum that kicks off
the sprint. The purpose of sprint planning is to
define what can be delivered in the sprint and
how that work will be achieved.

Sprint planning is done in collaboration with the

whole scrum team.

The purpose of sprint planning is to shine a light

on the team's work for the product owner to
better understand how a project is going and
speak to priorities.

It's also an opportunity for the team to bring up

dependencies inherent in a feature that require
certain tasks to come before others.
 DAILY STANDUP:
The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event for the
Developers of the Scrum Team. To reduce
complexity, it is held at the same time and place
every working day of the Sprint.

If the Product Owner or Scrum Master are actively

working on items in the Sprint Backlog, they
participate as Developers.

The Developers can select whatever structure and

techniques they want, as long as their Daily Scrum
focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal and
produces an actionable plan for the next day of
work. This creates focus and improves self-
management.

Daily Scrums improve communications, identify

impediments, promote quick decision-making,
and consequently eliminate the need for other
meetings.
The Daily Scrum is not the only time Developers
are allowed to adjust their plan. They often meet
throughout the day for more detailed discussions
about adapting or re-planning the rest of the
Sprint’s work.
 SPRINT REVIEW
The sprint review is one of the most important
ceremonies in Scrum where the team gathers to
review completed work and determine whether
additional changes are needed.

The official Scrum Guide describes it as a working

session and makes the point that the “Scrum team
should avoid limiting it to a presentation.”

A Sprint Review includes the following events

Attendees include the Scrum Team and key
stakeholders if invited by the Product Owner.

The Product Owner discusses the 'done' and 'what

has not been done' items of the Product Backlog.

The Development team explains what went well

during a Sprint, what obstacles they faced
RETROSPECTIVE
Sprint retrospectives are the last step of the
Scrum sprint cycle where teams review the Sprint
that has been completed to generate ideas for
improving the next one.

A sprint retrospective is typically time-boxed at

between 60 and 90 minutes but can extend
beyond that depending on the length of the sprint
itself.

The general purpose is to allow the team, as a

group, to evaluate its past working cycle.

In addition, it's an important moment to gather

feedback on what went well and what did not.
PART FIVE
Agile terminologies

User story
Epic
Burn down chart
Story point
Team velocity
Retrospective
 USER STORY
It is the smallest unit of work in agile framework.
It's not a feature but an end goal. It is the goal that
is expressed from user’s perspectives.

It is generally an informal explanation of software

written according to customer.
 EPIC
It is a large frame of work that can be broken
down into small stories. These stories are
sometimes called issues.

It often comprises of multiple small teams on

many projects. It can be tracked on many boards.
They are always delivered over set of sprints.
 BURNDOWN
CHART
A burndown chart shows the amount of work that
has been completed in an epic or sprint, and the
total work remaining.

Burndown charts are used to predict your team's

likelihood of completing their work in the time
available.
 STORY POINT
The units for measuring and expressing the
estimated overall effort used to implement the
product backlog or any piece of work.

The team assigns story points depending upon

work complexity. In this area we adjust the
definition of getting ready.

As a benchmark we use the first story and

compare it with others previous sprints.
 TEAM VELOCITY
It is a measure of the amount of work tackled by a
team in a single sprint. Calculating the average
points at the end of sprint is very beneficial.

This is done by total all fully completed sprints

over time. Team velocity helps in predicting how
much scope can be completed by specific date.

We can also predict the date to complete a

specific task.
 REETRO.IO
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Prepare for the retrospective
meeting, ask for the feedback, track
action items, engage unmotivated
team members, manage unplanned
activities, and avoid distractions.

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