1. ‘Does my SCRUM look
big in this ?’
OPAL SCRUM Experience
Saffron Prior
October 2012

2. So what is SCRUM ?
In less that 100 words...
• An agile process that focuses on delivering the highest
business value in the shortest time
• A series of short iterations and therefore can cope with
changing requirements
• The business sets the priorities. Teams self-organize to
determine the best way to deliver.
• Every iteration demonstrates real working software and
the business decide whether to release it - or continue
to enhance it for another SPRINT.
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3. A SPRINT is a short iteration of development

4. Why did we choose to use it ?
Our previous Waterfall
process was not;
•Delivering fast enough
•Adapting to changing
requirements
•Delivering the highest value
business functionality
Big Ships are difficult to
steer and take a long time to
change direction !
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5. Small iterations are a more agile alternative to
large long running projects
We’d rather get from
A to B
in one of these !
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6. How did we get started ?
1st - we attended SCRUM
Master training
2nd - we passed on the
learning to others
3rd – we populated the
organisation
4th - we created the Product
Backlog
... then we were on our way, and we just kept going
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7. How did it go ?
•The team have self-managed
very successfully
• When they make commitments to each
other as a team they are more motivated
to deliver
•By inspect & adapt we have improved;
- Increased team velocity from 16 points in SPRINT1 to 45+ points in
SPRINT10
•One release per month for last 8 months
•Delivered on new requirements very quickly
•Zero defects found after deliver
•Our R&D customers have been very positive and
supportive of the change in process
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8. Were there any bumps in the road ?
Of course there were !
•We had an urgent change to deal with
immediately which meant abandoning
the current SPRINT
•We had some managers wanting
accurate cost / benefit analysis for
every requirement
•We had some customers who were
uncomfortable with the use of
demonstration over formal UAT
•We had wrinkles to iron out with a non-
Agile Service Introduction process
But we managed to ride these bumps and the road got smoother
with every SPRINT
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9. What would we do differently next time ?
Why not do it differently now ?
•Co-locate the whole team
• Not always possible but very
beneficial
•Not be the first project to
use Service Introduction
process from SCRUM
• Don’t do anything that is of no
benefit
•Repeat educations
sessions with our
customers
• Business participation is so
valuable
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10. Want to know more about SCRUM
Try the following web sites:
www.scrum.org
www.mountaingoatsoftware.com
Books:
Agile Project Management with SCRUM (Ken Schwaber)
Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using
SCRUM (Mike Cohn)
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