Scrum for dummies

A scrum... basically – image located at http://i.telegraph.co.uk/

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Scrum for dummies

Scrum ?• A simple and efficient project management framework

What it is not...• The newest trendy/lame buzz allowing developers to screw around

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Scrum for dummies

Origins of Scrum popularityAgile Manifesto, created in 2001 by 17 world-class geeks, in reaction to insanely heavy/inefficient existing project methods. Emergence of “Agility” word (Scrum has been created in 1995, tho).

4 principles

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

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Scrum for dummies

Swing metaphor – image copied from http://sevenfloorsdown.com

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Scrum for dummies

“Problem”• Customers do not know what they want

Consequences• The delivered product does not meet the customer's expectations

• Lots of time wasted on abortive & exhaustive specifications, the workload is not evenly distributed amongst workers

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Scrum for dummies

Solutions• release early, release often

→ small independent working pieces of software (“software increments”, easier to test!)→ development industrialization (continuous integration, automatic testing...)

• involve the customer from the beginning→ start with something, even inaccurate→ early demos, early feedback

• specify the present, plan the future→ accurate backlog items for the closest sprints→ less precise ideas for the last ones

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Scrum for dummies

Cycles

Releases fixed-length periods (~2-3 months) broken down into sprints

Sprints fixed-length iterations (~2-4 weeks)

No rules about pushes to production. A push can occur every hour for instance (see Facebook).

Fixed duration but variable perimeter (best effort)never postpone the deadline but remove something

WHY?once again, earlier feedback! cramming is not sustainablebearable work pace → higher quality

Image located at http://files.myopera.com

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Scrum for dummies

Artifacts

Backlog prioritized set of features (releases) or stories (sprints) related to the product to be delivered

Feature big functional product subset (e.g. “partner access to back-office”)

User Story functional test cases (← these forms the feature specs, check this book)Example: “As an unlogged user, when I go to my account page, then I am redirected to the login page.”

Task one technical aspect of a storythey form the sprint backlog

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Scrum for dummies

Roles

Product Ownerunique customer proxy for the team / backlog maintainer / product aficionado / Mr. Visionary-Knowledgeable

Scrum MasterScrum guru, peacemaker

Team Self-organized bunch of co-located versatile people (specialization is E V I L)

Team = (PO+SM+devs+testers)

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Scrum for dummies

The Big Picture

Scrum cycles - image located at http://www.cprime.com/

CONCLUSIONSWhat about here ?

¿QUESTIONS?