Scrum is an agile approach for developing innovative products and services

1. Agile Methodologies
Getting started with Scrum
September 2014
Juan José Vázquez
CTO

2. Getting | started with Scrum
September
2014

3. Getting started with Scrum
What is Scrum?
• Scrum is an agile approach for developing innovative products and services
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4. Getting started with Scrum
What is Scrum?
• Scrum is not a standardized process but a people-centric framework for
organizing and managing work.
• Based on a set of values, principles and practices that provide the foundation
to which the organization will add its unique implementation (engineering
practices and specific aproaches).
• Provides the foundation and walls of the building but not the details and
features.
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5. Getting started with Scrum
Why Scrum?
• Mainly because waterfall doesn’t work (poor technical solutions, delays,
overwork, unsatisfied customers, developers, managers and stakeholders, etc)
• This is true especially in cutting-edge scenarios with a high degree of uncertainty
• A lot of waste in many steps of the process: requirements definition, analysis,
architecture design, application design, implementation, etc.
• Fast feedback needed. Mistakes are found out too late!. Just-in-time decisions
needed.
• More cross-functional teams wanted.
• The question now is not, can we build it?, but… should we build it?.
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6. Getting started with Scrum
Scrum benefits
• Delighted customers
• Improved return of investment
• Reduced costs
• Fast results
• Confidence to succeed in a complex world
• More joy
But caution, Scrum is not a silver bullet!
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7. Getting started with Scrum
Can Scrum help you? (Cynefin framework)
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+ Interrupted-Driven
(Kanban)
Scrum

8. Getting started with Scrum
Scrum roles
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9. Getting started with Scrum
Scrum roles: Product Owner
• Empowered central point of product leadership (similar to a product manager but
with more capabilities and responsibilities).
• Is the single authority responsible for deciding which features and functionality
to build and the order in which to build them.
• Mantains and communicates to all other participants a clear vision of what the
Scrum team is trying to achieve.
• Is responsible for the overall success (or failure) of the solution being developed
or mantained.
• Has the obligation to make sure the most valuable work possible is always
performed.
• Collaborates with the ScrumMaster and development team and must be
available to answer soon.
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10. Getting started with Scrum
Scrum roles: ScrumMaster
• Helps everyone involved understand and embrace Scrum values, principles and
practices.
• Acts as a coach, providing process leadership and helping the Scrum team and
the rest of the organization develop their own high-performance, organization-specific
Scrum approach.
• Helps the team resolves issues and make improvements.
• Protects the team from outside interference.
• Takes a leadership role in removing impediments that inhibit team productivity.
• Has no authority to exert control over the team (no project manager or
development manager). Functions as a leader, not a manager.
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11. Getting started with Scrum
Scrum roles: Development Team
• Diverse and cross-functional collection of people who are responsible for
designing, building and testing the product.
• Self-organizes to determine the best way to accomplish the goal set out by the
product owner.
• 5 – 9 people in size.
• Collectively have all skills needed to produce good quality, working software.
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12. Getting started with Scrum
Scrum activities and practices
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13. Getting started with Scrum
Product Backlog
• Prioritized list of work to do: features, changes, defects, improvements, design,
learning, technical debt (more later),…, everything has to be in the backlog!.
• Managed by the product owner but everyone involved can collaborate: internal
and external stakeholders, customers, the scrum team, etc.
• PBIs (product backlog items) are ordered using factors such as value, cost,
knowledge and risk.
• PBI size: relative size measure, ideal days or story points (recommended).
• Variety of grain. As much detail, much readiness to start working in it. But… not
too much detail (it could be waste).
• Control WIP (work in process). Not too many PBIs (again, it could be waste).
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14. Getting started with Scrum
Sprints
• Timeboxed (fixed start and end dates) iterations during which the work is
performed.
• 1 month maximum (try to be constant to produce cadence).
• Don’t alter goals nor personnel during the sprint (except some rare occasions).
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15. Getting started with Scrum
Sprints: sprint planning
• Performed by the product owner, development team and ScrumMaster.
• Together define a sprint goal.
• The development team reviews the backlog and determines the high-priority
items that the team can realistically accomplish in the sprint working at a
sustainable pace.
• PBIs can be broken down into a set of tasks producing the sprint backlog.
• Tasks are estimated in hours (just-in-time planning).
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16. Getting started with Scrum
Sprints: sprint execution
• It’s when the work is “done” (more later).
• Team members define their own task-level work (self-organize).
• Guided by the ScrumMaster’s coaching.
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17. Getting started with Scrum
Sprints: daily Scrum
• Timeboxed (15 min or less) meeting
held on a daily basis.
• Just-in-time inspect and adapt activity.
• Three questions:
• What did I accomplish since the
last daily scrum?
• What do I plan to work on by the
next daily scrum?
• What are the obstacles or
impediments that are preventing
me from making progress?
• Not a problem-solving activity.
• Product owner could not attend or talk
(albeit it’s recommended).
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18. Getting started with Scrum
Sprints: definition of done
• As a sprint results: potentially
shippable product increment.
• Specifies the degree of confidence
that the work completed is of good
quality and is potentially shippable.
• Minimum: a designed, built,
integrated, tested and documented
slice of functionality.
• Aggressive: enables business to
decide if it wants to ship.
• The definition of done could vary
along the project depending on the
degree of maturity.
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19. Getting started with Scrum
Sprints: sprint review
• Inspect and adapt activity held at the end of the sprint.
• Participants could include: the Scrum team, stakeholders, customers, interested
members of other teams, etc.
• Focused on reviewing the just-completed features. Inspect and adapt the
product.
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20. Getting started with Scrum
Sprints: sprint retrospective
• Inspect and adapt activity held after the sprint review.
• The Scrum team is the only participant.
• Focused on reviewing the scrum itself. Inspect and adapt the process.
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21. Getting started with Scrum
Principles (categories)
• Agile Manifesto (Beck et al. 2001)
• Variability and uncertainty
• Prediction and adaptation
• Validated learning
• Work in process (WIP)
• Progress
• Performance
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22. Getting started with Scrum
Principles: Variability and Uncertainty
• Embrace Helpful Variability
• Development is not manufacturing (focus on a single instance)
• However manage inventory (WIP)
• Employ Iterative and Incremental Development
• Acknowledges we will get things wrong before get things right
• Avoid big-bang-style events
• Focus on learning to improve
• Leverage Variability through Inspection, Adaptation, and Transparency
• Some level of variability is required to build something new
• Early and frequent feedback
• Inspect and adapt not only what we’re building but also how
• All the information always available (transparency)
• Reduce All Forms of Uncertainty Simultaneously
• End uncertainty (what): features
• Means uncertainty (how): process and technologies
• Customer uncertainty (who): customers
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23. Getting started with Scrum
Principles: Prediction and Adaptation
• Keep Options Open
• Last Responsible Moment (LRM): it’s when the cost of not making a
decision becomes greater than the cost of making it
• Wait until we have better information before committing to a decision
• Accept That You Can’t Get It Right Up Front
• Acknowledge that we can’t get all of the requirements or the plans right up
front
• Produce some requirements and plans up front, but just sufficiently
• Favor an Adaptive, Exploratory Approach
• Trial-and error approach based on appropriate use of exploration
• When faced with uncertainty, we buy information by exploring (prototypes,
proof of concepts, etc)
• Embrace Change in an Economically Sensible Way
• Assume that change is the norm (we can’t predict the uncertainty)
• Manage the WIP
• Balance Predictive Up-Front Work with Adaptive Just-in-Time Work
• Maximize adaptation based on fast feedback and minimize prediction
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24. Getting started with Scrum
Principles: Validated Learning
• Validate Important Assumptions Fast
• Assumptions represent a significant development risk
• Leverage Multiple Concurrent Learning Loops
• As in daily scrum or in sprint reviews
• Organize Workflow for Fast Feedback
• Critical for helping truncate wrong paths sooner and vital for quickly
uncovering and exploiting time-sensitive, emergent opportunities
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25. Getting started with Scrum
Principles: Work in Process (WIP)
• Use Economically Sensible Batch Sizes
• Economies-of-scale thinking doesn’t apply dogmatically to product
development (not manufacturing)
• Single-piece flow
• Recognize Inventory and Manage It for Good Flow
• Find the proper balance between just enough inventory and too much
inventory
• Focus on Idle Work, Not Idle Workers
• Watch the baton, not the runners
• Consider Cost of Delay
• Financial cost associated with delaying work or delaying achievement of a
milestone
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26. Getting started with Scrum
Principles: Progress
• Adapt to Real-Time Information and Replan
• Rapidly replan and adapt to the stream of economically important
information that is continuously arriving
• Measure Progress by Validating Working Assets
• Measure progress by building working, validated assets that deliver value
and that can be used to validate important assumptions
• Focus on Value-Centric Delivery
• Value is generated by delivering working assets to customers, by validating
important assumptions, or by acquiring valuable knowledge
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27. Getting started with Scrum
Principles: Performance
• Go Fast but Never Hurry
• Sustainable pace: people should be able to work at a pace that they can
continue for an extended period of time
• Build In Quality
• Each increment of value that is created is completed to a high level of
confidence and has the potential to be put into production or shipped to
customers
• Employ Minimally Sufficient Ceremony
• Eliminate unnecessary formality
• Write a document if:
• It is a deliverable as part of the product (installation, user’s guide, etc)
• To capture an important discussion, decision, or agreement
• It is the high-value way of helping new team members come up to
speed quickly
• There is a regulatory requirement (a cost of doing business in a
regulated industry)
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28. Getting started with Scrum
Requirements: Refining PBIs
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29. Getting started with Scrum
User Stories
• A convenient format for expressing the desired business value for many types of
product backlog items, especially features.
• Contain conditions of satisfaction (specification by example or acceptance-test-driven
development).
• If there’re very large are called themes or epics.
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30. Getting started with Scrum
User Stories: INVEST in Good Stories
• Independent
• Negotiable
• Valuable
• Estimatable
• Sized Appropriately (Small)
• Testable
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31. Getting started with Scrum
Other kinds of PBIs
• Nonfunctional requirements
• Knowledge-Acquisition Stories
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32. Getting started with Scrum
Estimating: who?
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33. Getting started with Scrum
Estimating: what and when?
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34. Getting started with Scrum
Estimating: how? (planning poker)
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35. Getting started with Scrum
Velocity
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36. Getting started with Scrum
Technical Debt
• Unfit (bad) design
• Defects
• Insufficient test coverage
• Excessive manual testing
• Poor integration and release management
• Lack of platform experience
• And many more…
• Technical Debt Must Be Managed! (technical debt backlog)
• Not All Technical Debt Should Be Repaid
• Product Nearing End of Life
• Throwaway Prototype
• Product Built for a Short Life
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37. Getting started with Scrum
Resources
• http://www.innolution.com/
• Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process (Addison-
Wesley Signature Series (Cohn))
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38. Getting started with Scrum
Getting | started with Scrum
Q&A
?
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39. Información de contacto
Getting | started with Scrum
Tecsisa
TECSISA
(Tecnología, Sistemas y Aplicaciones S.L.)
Parque Empresarial Metrovacesa Vía Norte
C/ Quintanavides, 19
Planta Baja, Oficina A
28050 Madrid
Tel: 91 445 21 15
Fax: 91 447 05 11
info@tecsisa.com www.tecsisa.com
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