Scrum

Claudio Ochoa – Patricio Maller

SEG UNSL – Iridis Group
 Scrum philosophy
“During a Scrum, the pack must work as a
unit, not as 8 individuals. Everybody has a
role to play. The important goal to bear in
mind is that when you work well together as
a unit, the whole is much greater than the
sum of the parts.”
The On-Line Rugby Coaching Manual

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 2

 Scrum Authors
• Ken Schwaber: developed and formalized Scrum
process for systems development.
• Jeff Sutherland: initial thoughts and practices
prior to formalizing Scrum with Ken.
• Mike Beedle: Scrum innovator and practitioner.
Wrapped XP with Scrum

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 Scrum life cycle

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 How does Scrum work?

• Small teams (< 10 people)

• A series of Sprints (30 days)
• Visible, usable increments
• Time-boxed

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 Scrum feels different
• Less time is spent trying to plan and define
tasks
• Less time is spent creating and reading
management reports
• More time is spent with the team
understanding what really is happening and
empirically responding.

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 6

 Why Scrum?

• Assumes complicated, unpredictable

environment
• Does not assume repeatable process
• Contains elements our successful teams
were already applying

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 7

 Scrum roles
• Scrum master
• The team.
Besides these roles, the following players are
identified
• Upper management
• Customer
• Product owner
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 What does the Scrum Master do?

• Makes immediate decisions at Scrum

meetings
• Records impediments and resolves ASAP
• Keeps the team focused and making
progress
• Tracks progress

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 9

 The Scrum Master
• Responsible for ensuring that Scrum values,
practices and rules are enacted and enforced
• Nexus between management and the team
• Drives daily scrums comparing progress
made vs. expected.
• Ensures impediment are quickly removed
and decisions are promptly made.
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 The Scrum Master cont.
• The Scrum Master works with management
and customer to identify and institute a
product owner.
• The Scrum Master and the management
form Scrum teams
• The Scrum Master, the Product owner and
the Scrum team create a Product backlog

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 The Product Backlog
• “The Product Backlog is an evolving
prioritized queue of business and technical
functionality that needs to be developed into
a system”
Ken Schwaber

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 The Product Backlog cont.
• Requirements are listed in the Product
Backlog
• Lists features, functions, technologies,
enhancements, bug fixes, etc to be applied
to the product.
• PB is initially incomplete, to get the first
Sprint going they need to contain enough
requirements to drive a 30-day Sprint.

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 Backlog originates from
• Product marketing
• Sales
• Engineering
• Customer support

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 Backlog characteristics
• It’s sorted in order of priority
• It also include issues, which may require
resolution before one or more backlog items
can be worked on. Issues are also prioritized
• Requirements never stop changing...all you
need is a product vision and enough top
priority items on the backlog to begin one
iteration

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 15

 Requirements Emergence
• Initially a small set of high-priority
requirements is defined
• Requirements emerge as the product emerge
• Compare this approach vs. up-front
requirements
• Customer allocates budget for the initially
foreseeable Product Backlog

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 Product Owner
• ONLY the Product Owner is responsible for
managing and controlling the Product Backlog.
• The product owner is ONE person, not a
committee
• No one is allowed to tell the team to work from a
different set of priorities.
• All of the decisions the Product Owner makes are
highly visible, reflected in prioritization of the
backlog

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 Estimating Backlog Effort
• Initial estimation is done collaboratively by
developers, writers, quality staff, etc.
• Estimating is an iterative process.
• If the Product Owner can not get a clear
believable estimation for a top priority item,
this should be redefined
• The Scrum team selects the amount of
Backlog it can handle in a Sprint based on
these
May 5, 2020
estimates. Iridis Group - SEG 18
 Scrum Teams
• Self-organizing and fully autonomous
• A team commits to turn a selected set of
Backlog into a working product(Sprint goal)
• The team can do whatever is necessary to
achieve its goal.
• It is only constrained by organizational
conventions and standards.

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 19

 Team dynamics
• Scrum is structured to provide teams an
environment within which they can do
their best
• Scrum is empirical and teams can reduce
functionality and still meet goals.

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 Team size
• The size of the team should be 7 people.
• If more than 8 people are available they can
broken down in multiple teams (notice that
there will still be ONE backlog), and their
Scrum Masters will have to coordinate their
work.

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 21

 Teams composition
• There are no roles on teams.
• Teams self-organize to turn requirements
into product functionality.
• Avoid people refusing to code because “it
doesn’t fit their job description”
• However, a team can be composed of
writers, testers, and quality guys with
specific tasks assigned
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 Working environment
• Open working environments
– Silence is a bad sign
• Use whiteboards
• Working hours are set by the team

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 Sprint
• Fixed period of time, usually 30 days
• A team is let loose for the 30-day Sprint
– The scope or nature of work being done can
NOT be changed
– No one is allowed to add more functionality
– No one can tell the team how to proceed

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 24

 What happens during a Sprint?
• Scrum Meetings
• Each team produces a visible, usable
increment
• Each increment builds on prior increments
• Each team member buys into assignment

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 Sprint Rules

• Total focus on the task at hand

• NO interruptions to team
• NO changes allowed from the outside
• New work may be uncovered in the Sprint
by the development team

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 Sprint Planning Meeting
• Consists of two consecutive meetings
– Team meets with Product Owner, management
and users to decide functionality to be build in
next Sprint.
– Teem meeting to figure out how functionality is
to be built into a product increment.
• Inputs to the meeting:
– Product backlog, latest increment, capabilities
and past performance of the team
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 Sprint Backlog
• The team determines work to be performed
to reach Sprint Goal
• Product Owner often attends
• Compile a list of tasks (Sprint Backlog)
having enough detail to take 4-16 hours to
complete.
• Team modifies Sprint Backlog throughout
the Sprint, adding/removing tasks.
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 Daily Scrum Meeting
• Short (15 -30 min) status meetings,
facilitated by the Scrum Master
• All team members attend
• One activity – the Scrum Master asks 3
questions of each attendee

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 29

 Format of the Daily Scrum
• What have you completed since the last
Scrum meeting?
• What got in your way of completing this
work?
• What will you do between now and the next
Scrum meeting?

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 Benefits of Daily Scrums
• Improve communications
• Eliminate other meetings
• Identify and remove impediments
• Improves everyone’s level of project
knowledge

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 Scrum Master responsibilities
• Keep the Daily Scrum short by enforcing
the rules
• Ensure that room is setup for the meeting
– Setup conference calls for team members
working remotely
– Arrange chairs so people don’t get caught up in
side conversations as they move chairs around

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 32

 Meeting insights
• Time and location of Daily Scrums should
be constant
• Managers can attend Daily Scrums,
however only team members are allowed to
speak (pigs and chickens rule)
• A Daily Scrum is NOT a design session

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 Handling Impediments
• The Scrum Master must record and remove
impediments detected in Daily Scrums
• If Scrum Master does not fully understand
the impediment, he should meet with the
team member after the meeting.
• Team must report impediments every Daily
Scrum until it gets resolved

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 34

 Common impediments
• Examples
– Required to attend other meetings o training
sessions
– Asked by management to do something else
– Unsure of design decision
– Unsure how to use technology

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 35

 Follow-up meetings
• Any discussion needed other than the status
provided in the Daily Scrum leads to a
follow-up meeting
• Examples
– Design discussions
– Requirements interpretation discussions
– Sharing of information

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 36

 4 variables
• Every product development project is
constrained by four variables
– Time
– Cost (people + resources)
– Quality
– Functionality

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 Sprint Mechanics
• A Sprint fixes 3 out of the 4 variables:
– Time: always 30 days
– Cost: salary of team + development environment
– Quality: usually an organizational standard
• The team has the authority to change
functionality as long as it meets the Sprint
goal

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 38

 Mandatory tasks
• During a Sprint, the team has 2 mandatory
tasks:
– Daily Scrum Meetings: must be promptly
attended by ALL team members
– Sprint Backlog: must be kept up-to-date. Team
members must adjust the estimates as they
work on the Backlog

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 39

 Sprint cancellation
• A Sprint should be cancelled if it no longer
makes sense given the circumstances
– Management can cancel a Sprint if the Sprint
goal becomes obsolete.
– Market conditions or technological
requirements may change
• Because of short duration of Sprints, it
rarely makes sense to cancel it.
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 Sprint Cancellation cont
• The team can also decide to cancel a Sprint
– They may realize they can not achieve the
Sprint goal
– They may run into a major roadblock
• Sprint termination consumes resources
– A new Sprint Planning meeting must be
conducted

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 Sprint Review
• 4-hour informational meeting.
• Team presents the product increment built
during the Sprint to
– Management
– Customers
– Users
– Product Owner

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 Sprint Review cont

• Surprises from the Sprint are reported

• ANYTHING can be changed, work can be
added, eliminated, re-prioritized
• New estimates and team assignments are
made for the next Sprint

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 43

 Benefits of Scrum

• Requirements change is managed

• Market input is incorporated
• Customers see on-time delivery of
increments, which refines requirements
• Relationship with customer and marketing
develops, trust builds, knowledge grows

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 44

 Implementing Scrum
• Scrum encapsulates existing engineering
practices
• Scrum Master helps the team improve their
engineering practices by
– Causing the team to reevaluate and discard
wasteful practices
– Assessing, designing and adopting new
practices
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 Xp@Scrum

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 Final Thought
• “Scrum is not for everyone, but it is for
those who need to wrestle working systems
from the complexity of emerging
requirements and unstable technology”
Ken Schwaber

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 47

 References: Books & Articles
• Agile Software Development with Scrum.
Ken Schwaber & Mike Beedle

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 References: Web

http://www.controlchaos.com/ Ken Schwaber’s site

http://www.Xbreed.org Mike Beedle’s site
http://www.agilealliance.com/articles Agile
Alliance’s site
http://www.jeffsutherland.org/scrum/index.html
http://www.lindarising.org -- click on Articles

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 49

 Questions?
• Claudio Ochoa
– cochoa@nec.com.ar
• Patricio Maller
– patricio.maller@motorola.com

May 5, 2020 Iridis Group - SEG 50