What is Scrum?

Scrum defines a set of values and principles to guide decisions on how to develop higher quality software. The basic goal in scrum is to create a new software with high quality standards in less time quickly.

Scrum framework is a light weight, simple to understand and difficult to master.

Scrum is a framework that would help the team members to work collaboratively. Scrum team would encourage the teams to learn through the experiences and self organize themselves while working on a problem. Scrum teams are encouraged to improve over their wins and losses.

Scrum team's frameworks can be implemented across all kinds of teams. This can be considered as one of the reasons for scrum to be popular. When thought of an Agile project framework, scrum describes a set of meetings, tools, and roles which work in concert in order to help the team's structure and manage their work.

Scrum Values

A team's success with Scrum depends on five values. Those are -

• Courage - The Scrum value courage is critical to an agile team's success. Scrum teams should feel safe enough to say no, to ask for help, and to try new things. Agile teams should be courageous enough to question the status when it slows down their ability to succeed.
• Focus - The Scrum value focus is one of the best skills scrum teams can develop. Focus indicates that Scrum teams should finish whatever they have started. So agile teams are persistent about limiting the amount of work in process.
• Commitment - The Scrum value commitment is essential for building an agile culture. Scrum teams work together as a unit means the Scrum and agile teams trust each other to follow what they say about their work. Agile teams only agree to take the tasks that they believe they can complete, so they are careful not to overcommit.
• Respect - Scrum team members demonstrate respect to one another, to the product owner, to stakeholders, and to the ScrumMaster. Agile teams should know their strength that lies in how well they collaborate. They should respect each other's ideas, give each other permission to have discussions, and recognize each other's accomplishments.
• Openness - Scrum teams consistently seek out new ideas and opportunities to learn. Agile teams are also honest when they need help.

Scrum Events (Ceremonies)

Below are the list of scrum events -

• Sprint
• Sprint planning
• Standup meeting
• Sprint review
• Sprint retrospective

The Sprint

A sprint is a time period during which certain tasks such as Testing etc are completed and set ready for Review. Sprints usually lasts from 2-4 weeks.

Sprint Planning

Planning the team meetings which are scheduled to determine backlog items which are going to be delivered and how we will be going to achieve the target completion.

Standup Meeting

Daily stand up meeting is a 10-15 minutes team meeting in which each team member gives the information about the progress of their part of work completed, planned activities to be done for that day would be communicated clearly to the team by the Team Leader and also, any impediments that are blocking the current work.

Sprint Review

It is the demonstration of the work completed by the team during the sprint. Now, it is the responsibility of the product owner to check the work completed against the Acceptance criteria and either accepts or rejects it. Client must provide feedback on the work to ensure that the delivered product meets their business needs.

Sprint Retrospective

Retro is a final meeting in the Sprint to discuss what went well and what did not go as expected. Based on this, lessons learnt the team can improve their performance better as they would be knowing the flaws of the last sprint. It is a great opportunity for the entire team to focus on the overall performance and identify strategies for areas of improvement on their processes.

Scrum Artifacts

Below are the list of scrum artifacts -

• Product backlog
• Sprint backlog
• Increment

Product Backlog

Product Backlog is the most important document which contains every requirement of the desired system. It is a list of work items each of which gives a deliverable with Business value. Backlog items are ordered in terms of Business value by the product owner.

Sprint Backlog

A Sprint Backlog is a list of items taken from the product backlog that are to be completed in a sprint.

Increment

An increment is the sum of all the product backlog items that are completed since previous software release. It is the responsibility of the team to include everything that is included in an increment is ready to be released which is known as potentially shippable increment.

Roles of a Scrum Team

The Scrum team would consist of Product Owner, Scrum Master, and a Scrum Master. Scrum Teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. Self-organizing teams would select how best to accomplish their work, rather than being directed by others outside the team. Cross-functional teams would have all competencies that are needed to achieve the work without depending on others who are not part of the team. The team model in Scrum is designed to optimize flexibility, creativity, and productivity.