What is a Scrum Ceremony?

Scrum Ceremonies are some important moments in which the team works in a coordinative way for the all the sprints. Scrum ceremonies would ensure the continuity across all the sprints.

Overview

The Scrum software development methodology would be broken into ceremonies, artifacts, and roles. And further, each of these terms would be further broken into separate elements as well. Based on Scrum theory and values, these elements would constitute of the entire Scrum framework.

Scrum ceremonies are the meetings which are designed to Organize the work of a sprint, to inspect and adapt the product increment in development from sprint planning through each daily scrum to signing off the increment in sprint Review. Once the sprint is completed, team would conduct a sprint Retrospective in order to identify the process improvements for next sprint.

Let us understand each ceremony of the Scrum framework in detail.

Sprint Planning

What happens in Sprint Planning?

During the Sprint Planning, the whole Scrum team would collaborate together to discuss the required high priority work for the sprint and would define the sprint goal. The Scrum Master's role would primarily be facilitating the meeting. The Product Owner would describe the Sprint Objective and would also answer the questions from the Development team on Acceptance criteria and execution, suspension criteria.

Who attends the Sprint Meeting?

Sprint planning would involve the entire scrum team: Product Owner, Scrum Master and Development team.

Daily Scrum

What happens in a daily Scrum?

The Development team would meet for 15 minutes every day of the sprint for inspecting the progress of work towards the sprint goal. Each team member would describe to each other on the progress of work that is going on and cross check whether they are still on track in order to meet the sprint goal.

Who would attend the Daily Scrum?

In a daily Scrum Meeting, the Scrum Master and the development team are mandatory participants. The product owner would be invited but he is not a mandatory participant.

Sprint Review

What happens in a Sprint Review?

Sprint review would focus on the product that is being developed particularly on the potentially shippable product that is created during sprint. Stakeholders are invited to discuss the progress of work that has been completed during the sprint. Product Backlog would be adapted based on the feedback. The product Owner would have an option to release a functionality that is completed. The Actual purpose of the sprint meeting is to inspect and adapt the capability that is provided by the system.

Who attends a Sprint Review?

All the members of Scrum team would attend the Sprint Review. Stakeholders, other affected managers, senior managers, etc would be invited to attend and give the feedback. As a diverse feedback is much important, the scrum team should invite as many people as the room can hold.

How long a Sprint Review should last?

Sprint reviews would be limited to a maximum of four hours. A general thumb rule is allowing one hour for sprint review per every week of sprint length. This would mean that team should time box the sprint review to two hours for a two-week sprint and four hours for a one-month sprint.

Sprint Retrospective

What happens in a Sprint Retrospective?

Focus would be more on the process.During the sprint retrospective,the scrum team would discuss what went right and the areas of improvement in the sprint.Tangible plans would be made on how to improve their own tools,processes,and relationships.

What is the difference between Sprint Reviews and Sprint Retrospectives?

Sprint Reviews often focus on the product whereas sprint Retrospectives would focus on the process.

Who should attend a sprint Retrospective?

Sprint Retrospective would include the Scrum Master,Product Owner and Development team.Product owners are invited but it is not mandatory for them to attend.

How long wou ld a Sprint Retrospective last?

A sprint Retrospective would take a maximum of three hours.Scrum would allow 45 minutes for each week of the length of a sprint.So, a two week sprint would take sprint retrospective an hour and half.