Girl Geeks Dinner - Scrum 101

The Future of Business

Carolyn Sanders - Fronde

Scrum 101 – end to end, minus the hype

Today – Scrum end to end

1. A tiny bit about where it came from

2. A bunch about how Scrum works…

… with examples from an actual project

3. Where to go for more information

4. Nothing at all about why it’s the best silver bullet since sliced bread

Commercial in confidence | Copyright © 2008 Fronde Systems Group Limited

Commercial in confidence | Copyright © 2008 Fronde Systems Group Limited 3

All of these things:

1. A set of engineering best practices that allow for rapid delivery of high quality software

2. A project process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation

3. A philosophy that encourages team work and accountability

2. What is this “Agile”?

1. Agile Manifesto (philosophy)

We have come to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools• Working software over comprehensive documentation• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation• Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items onthe right, we value the items on the left more.


Agile Values (philosophy)

• Openness: the project is for the stakeholders

• Honesty: in estimating and planning

• Courage: to face the consequences

• Trust: in those individuals and their estimates

• Money: because projects aren’t free

• Commitment: to deliver on our promisesCredits: First five from Rob Thomsett, last from Jeff Sutherland


Agile Landscape

Agile Manifesto and Values

Agile Project

Management

(process)

Agile Delivery

(process)

Agile Programming

(engineering

practices)


Agile Delivery

• Agile Delivery is:

• small, self-managing, cross-functional teams,

• delivering value frequently and incrementally

• to the customers, by collaborating with them

• Flavours:

• Scrum

• DSDM

• Crystal

• RUP


Agile Delivery


Idea Business Case

Reqts Design and Develop

Test Train Deploy

Traditional Project

Agile Project

Idea Bus. Case

HLR / Design / Setup

1 2 3 4 5 6

DeployIterations – Design/Develop/Test

First chance to see

Last chance to change

First chance to see

Last chance to change

Where Scrum started and who started it

• 1986: Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka use the “rugby scrum” metaphor for product development

• 1991: Dr Jeff Sutherland (Easel) and Ken Schwaber (ADM), on real projects and calling it “Scrum”

• And: Gabrielle Benefield and Pete Deemer at Yahoo

• And: Alistair Cockburn, and Mike CohnCommercial in confidence | Copyright © 2008 Fronde Systems Group Limited

2. Scrum on one page

© Pete Deemer and Gabrielle Benefield, The Scrum PrimerCommercial in confidence | Copyright © 2008 Fronde Systems Group Limited

3. The example project

• Project H: building an Intranet in MOSS

• For a client, with their experts

• Three MOSS experts, a tester and a BA

• Very constrained budget and deadline

• Willing to trade off scope to get quality


“Individuals and Interactions” – Scrum Roles

Product Owner: get all the stakeholders’ input, prioritise the outputs

Team: build the output. Self Organising, Cross Functional

Scrum Master: get the process going well

Stakeholders: have their say and do their bit

Project Manager: not specified in Scrum


Our team room


“Customer Collaboration” - the Product Backlog - the theory

All the stuff we could do:- Features- User Stories- Known Bugs- Explorations

The Vision

The Product Backlog

- Specific items- Prioritised- Business value assigned

- Effort estimated by team


The Product Backlog – how we did it


The Product Backlog – estimation with Planning Poker

The Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55…

Planning Poker cards: 0, ½, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 29, 40, 100, ?, ∞, coffee/pie

James Grenning & Mike Cohn


Sprint Planning – the theory

Product Backlog itemsprioritisedestimated

How many hours the team can work in this Sprint, times “focus factor”*

Sprint Planning - Break down the Backlog items into tasks- Agree on tasks- Estimate tasks- Commit to the outputs

Sprint Backlog- Estimated- Committed to- Sequenced

Do the Sprint

Potentially deployable output: working software


Sprint Planning – “Working Software” means what, exactly?

Defining “Done” – hanselminutes.com Podcast 119

Quality (of the product)

Support

Documentation

Content

Testing


Sprint Planning again – what we did


“Responding to Change” in the Daily Scrum – the theory

1. What I did yesterday2. What I plan to do

today3. What’s holding me upRulesSame time every day for 15

minutesNo discussions during the

ScrumUpdate the Sprint Backlog:

hours’ effort remainingUpdate the Burndown

© Pete Deemer and Gabrielle Benefield, The Scrum Primer


Daily Scrum – what we did


Daily Scrum – what we did (the task wall)


Daily Scrum – what else we did


Behind the Daily Scrum – what else we did


“Responding to Change”: Sprint Review / Demo – theory and practice

• A little “Ta Da!” moment• Not a presentation, a demonstration


Retrospective – theory and practice

Look Back• Plus / Minus / Interesting• or Do Again / Do Differently• Dot prioritisation • Caused by / Exposed By

Look Forward, Adjust Course• Actions Arising• Measuring Velocity: focus factor• Product Backlog re-estimate


5. How to get more info

Scrum in general

• www.scrumalliance.org

• scrumtraininginstitute.com/library

• agileprofessionals.net

• blog.crisp.se/henrikkniberg/

- XP from the Trenches

Planning Poker and User Stories

• www.mountaingoatsoftware.com


The big secret

Don’t tell anyone, but…


Q&A

• Carolyn Sanders

• Principal Consultant – Agile and PM

• www.fronde.com
