4. Overview of Agile and Scrum
Agile Manifesto
Agile is a set of values :
Individuals and interactions over processes
and tools
Working software (Products) over
comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract
negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
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5. Overview of Agile and Scrum
12 Agile Principles
1 Highest priority is to satisfy the
customer through early and continuous
delivery of valuable software/products
2 Welcome changing requirements
3 Deliver working software (product)
frequently
4 Business people and developers must
work together daily throughout the
project
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6. Overview of Agile and Scrum
12 Agile Principles
5 Build projects around motivated
individuals
6 Most efficient and effective method of
conveying information is face-to-face
conversation
7 Working software (product) is the
primary measure of progress
8 Agile processes promote sustainable
development (maintain a constant pace
indefinitely)
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7. Overview of Agile and Scrum
12 Agile Principles
9 Continuous attention to technical
excellence and good design enhances agility
10 Simplicity (art of maximizing amount
of work not done) is essential
11 Best architectures, requirements, and
designs emerge from self-organizing teams
12 At regular intervals, team reflects on how
to become more effective, then fine-tunes
and adjusts
http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
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8. Overview of Agile and Scrum
What is Scrum?
Scrum is an Agile framework
that supports lightweight
processes that emphasize:
Incremental deliveries
Quality of Product
Continuous improvement
Discovery of people’s potential
Scrum is simple to understand,
requires discipline in order to
be successful
Scrum is not a methodology
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9. Overview of Agile and Scrum
Foundations of Scrum
Empiricism
Detailed up-front planning and defined processes are replaced
by just-in-time Inspect and Adapt cycles
Self-Organization
Small teams manage their own workload and organize
themselves around clear goals and constraints
Prioritization
Do the next right thing
Rhythm
Allows teams to avoid daily noise and focus on delivery
Collaboration
Leaders and customers work with the Team , rather than
directing them
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10. Overview of Agile and Scrum
CoreValues
Transparency
Everything about a project is visible to everyone
Commitment
Making realistic commitments
Courage
Have the courage to commit, to act, to be open and to
expect respect
Focus
Focus all of your efforts and skills on doing the work that you
have committed to doing
Respect
Respect and trust the different people who comprise a team
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12. Scrum: Vision and Product
ProductVision
A goal to aspire to
Can be
summarized in a
short statement of
intent
Communicate it to
the team
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13. Scrum: Vision and Product
Role: ProductOwner
ThoughtLeader and Visionary
Drives the Product Vision (e.g. story Mapping)
Prioritizes the Goals - User Stories
Maintains the Product Backlog with the team
Accepts the Working Product (on behalf of the
customer)
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15. Scrum: Sprint
Role: ScrumMaster
Servant Leader
Facilitates the Process
Supports the Team
Removes Organizational Impediments
Socializes Scrum to Management
Enables close collaboration across all roles and
functions
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16. Scrum: Sprint
Role: Team
CrossFunctional
5-9 Members
SelfOrganizing
Focused on meeting Commitments
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17. Role: Relationships
Product
Product Business
Owner
Owner Outcomes
Team
Team Stakeholders
Stakeholders
Process &
Improving
Scrum
Scrum
Flow
Master
Master
Diagram by Look Forward Consulting
18. Scrum Process Overview
Stakeholde Daily Standup
rs 24 hrs
Team
Product Retrospective
Owner Potentially
Shippable
Product
Stakeholders
Sprint length
1-4 weeks
Sprint Planning
Sprint Backlog
Team
Meeting
19. Scrum: Sprint
Flow & Artifacts: Planning
SprintPlanning meeting held prior to beginning of
each Sprint
Duration and time-effort are fixed in any given
Sprint
Goal is to have prioritized Sprint Backlog, broken
down into tasks, that the Team can commit to
During planning, Team commits to scope that can
be completed in the Sprint, taking into account the
Definition of Done
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20. Scrum: Sprint
Flow & Artifacts:
DailyStandup
Meetings held in same location, same time, every
day
Timeboxed at 15minutes
Encourages self-organization, rhythm, and
collaboration
Not a status meeting
Each team member speaks to:
What did I accomplish in the last 24 hours?
What do I plan to accomplish in the next 24 hours?
Any impediments getting in the way of my work?
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21. Scrum: Sprint
Flow & Artifacts: Taskboard
Active visual indicator of
flow of work
Should be visible to
team members at all
times
Should be kept current
Encourages self-
organization, and
collaboration
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22. Scrum: Sprint
Flow & Artifacts:
SprintReview
Occurs at the end of each Sprint
Inspect and Adapt the product (Empiricism)
The team meets with the Product Owner (and
Stakeholders) to demonstrate the working
software from the Sprint
This is a hands-on software demo (not a
PowerPoint) that usually requires some prep
beforehand
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23. Scrum: Sprint
Flow & Artifacts:
Retrospective
Occurs at the end of each Sprint
Inspect and Adapt the process (Empiricism)
Team and ScrumMaster meet to reflect on what
went well and what can be improved
Tone of the meeting is that everyone did their best
and now look to how can we improve
Retrospectives must conclude with team
commitments to action
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24. What is in it for me?
{Customer}
As a Customer, I want to be able to
Have opportunity to provide feedback early
Go to market faster with quality
Faster return on investment
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25. What is in it for me?
{Leadership}
As a Leader, I want
To understand progress in terms of real progress
made on the product
Better engaged & accountable team
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26. What is in it for me? {Team
Member}
Who is a typical team member?
As a team member, I want
A sustainable pace
Satisfaction of quality product delivered
Clear Priority and less interruption during
development
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27. How do you learn Scrum? By
Doing!
Apply a few practices at a time
Understand the values and foundations
Inspect and Adapt
Experience the Joy of Doing Scrum
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28. How do you learn Scrum?
Experiential Training.
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29. User groups /Communities
ALN – Agile Leadership Network
Scrum Alliance – Scrum User Groups
Online User Groups
Scrum Alliance
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32. Scrum is a lightweight framework with a
simple set of rules, built on foundations and
values
Scrum enables teams to discover their true
potential and deliver quality software that
adds business value
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33. Thank you !
More Resources at
http://agile.conscires.com/suggested-reading-list-and
Contact Info
Lisa Montaño
lisa.montano@conscires.com
+1-949-444-8946
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Editor's Notes
Test
The 17 signatories of the Agile Manifesto have this to say: That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the LEFT, more. 1: Foundation of Agile is to acknowledge that we will learn as we go, and we ’ll know more after a few iterations than we know now (we being the team and the customer)—so things will change. To deliver the greatest value to the customer, we need a framework that will give us the flexibility to change in order to deliver the greatest value to our customer.
5: Agile is about people—it ’s about finding people who are passionate about what they do, who have the ability to collaborate, and to adapt based on the shared vision of delivering a quality product that the customer values. An Agile framework emphasizes the importance of a diverse, talented, team who is measured not by status and reports, but by the working product they deliver according to their commitment.
Agile teams excel at product development and innovation because they adopt the best practices of their professional disciplines, and they focus on producing high-quality work. I bet you ’re wondering what the architects of the Agile manifesto mean by “maximizing the amount of work not done”. To me, this statement has to do with the ability of the team to work on the features of highest value and avoid doing work that customers will eventually toss out or not use. Through collaboration, communication, and transparency, “the art of maximizing the amount of work not done” is well honed by engaged stakeholders and customers, and a team that proactively seeks customer input and feedback to ensure that work is not wasted.
Quick glossary check: Incremental deliveries- refers to iterative development cycles, synonyms=iteration, sprint, timebox==a set amount of time that you determine to do work, whether its 2 weeks or 4 weeks, the team agrees to do a set amount of work during that time, and that commitment is held in place by the team, Scrum Master, Product Owner, and organization without violation. By observing the sprint boundary, everyone can remain accountable, committed, and dedicated to shared vision of the organization, product, and team.
Empiricism: learn by doing. You will not know everything (you will not know much) in the beginning. Start working, inspect the outcome (product) and your process, and commit to making real improvements to both at the end of each iteration. Prioritization: In my Introduction to Scrum classes, by far the strongest desire across teams and individuals, is that leadership clearly define the organizational and product priorities in the form of an ordered list, and stick to that priority for an amount of time that will allow the team to deliver a quality product.
Scrum provides for Transparency through the daily standup meeting for team members (and guests), the Taskboard, and the Retrospective meeting, in addition to advocating for open floor plans, and close physical proximity to enable face to face conversation. With these practices, artefacts, and ceremonies, team members have the forum in which to have candid dialogues about challenges, failures, frustrations, as well as successes, all to be built on and continuously improved and grown. In addition, the existence of such a forum as a foundation to practicing Scrum in itself implies an equality and respect for everyone, regardless of heirarchy, to appeal, to contribute, and to commit to doing their best work.
There are three roles in Scrum, the Product Owner, the ScrumMaster, and the team. Let ’s begin the discussion with a look at the Product Vision and the Product Owner.
The Product Owner is a domain expert who has deep knowledge of the product and customer needs, and is the person responsible for articulating the product vision to the team, and breaking the high level components of the Vision into implementable chunks of detail.
The attributes of a Product Owner include deep knowledge of the product, decision-making authority to prioritize the Product Backlog, seniority enough to engage, negotiate, and hold stakeholders and customers accountable for providing input and feedback. The product owner is known to be the “one throat to choke” if the product does not perform well in the market. While the team is responsible for delivering the features and functionality specified by the Product Owner, the product owner is responsible for ensuring those features and functionality are valuable to the customer and will ensure the needed/promised revenue stream.
Let ’s take a look at the role of the Scrum Master next…
The ScrumMaster role is deceivingly challenging . After all, what is the team leader supposed to do if he has no authority besides the authority granted by the team, has no direct reports, and may not even be a developer or expert in the discipline of the team members? The ScrumMaster must be passionate about the goal and commitment of the team. The mission of the ScrumMaster is to facilitate the success of the team, not by directing, telling, or checking status, but by asking powerful questions, challenging decision analysis, and ensure the team adheres to Scrum practices. The ScrumMaster must be an expert communicator, facilitator, and have the ability to convince those in leadership positions not to interfere with the work of the team, in order to free the team from distractions that would hinder the completion of the commitment of the Sprint. The ScrumMaster runs interference between the organization and the team to ensure the team has the resources, tools, and buy-in from stakeholders to accomplish the goals they have set out to accomplish.
Cross-Functional = Dev, QA, Bus Analyst, UI Designer, Architect. When a team is first formed and first practicing Scrum, they will have been very specialized and focused on their own area of expertise. As the team progresses through subsequent sprint cycles, they will develop the ability to assist one another in completing tasks, and will over time, achieve whole team accountability. A self-organizing team determines the tasks needed to bring a product feature into fruition, assigns the tasks to themselves, and commits to the tasks appropriately. No one knows better than the experts the simplicity or difficulty of completing specified tasks. Once the Product Owner has provided the feature attributes and conditions of acceptance, the team collectively assesses the complexity of implementing the feature, and determines the number of features that can be completed within an upcoming sprint cycle.
The Scrum roles are delicately balanced to ensure a minimum of structure and maximum of flexibility. The ScrumMaster and Product Owner work in tandem to provide the guidance and process to facilitate completion of the correct features, within the boundaries of the iteration. The Scrum masters acts as a shield to the team against interruptions from the wider organization, and removes impediments caused by lack of clarity regarding a user story, needed access to end users for additional background on a feature, or resources issues. The Product Owner supports the team by being accessible daily and having the needed information from stakeholders in order to make daily tactical decisions, as well as longer term strategic ones.
There are two ecosystems working within Scrum during a sprint: a flow a value that occurs between the team and the Product Owner, and the Process Flow that occurs between the team and the ScrumMaster. The Flow of Value begins with the Product Backlog, is translated into implementable tasks in the Sprint Backlog, and is output as a Potentially shippable product during the Product Demonstration (also referred to as the Sprint review). The second ecosystem occurs between the team and the ScrumMaster through Sprint planning meeting, the Retrospective, and the daily standup.
The Sprint planning meeting is attended by all members of the team who will be performing any amount of work during the sprint. Attendance by everyone at the sprint planning meeting ensures that everyone who will be responsible for innovating and creating a product on behalf of the customer, understands the underlying customer needs, business drivers, and constraints as outlined by the Product Owner. In addition, only through the collective discussion and analysis of all members of the team can the most accurate estimate and plan be created for development of the product. done in two meetings. Requirements Workshop and Design Workshop Can also have Pre-Planning (Estimation) and Product Backlog Grooming meeting If commitment is inaccurate (either under-commit or over-commit), then stories are to be added or removed. Team would then reflect in the Retrospective and accordingly adjust their upcoming commitments
Anyone may attend the daily standup meeting, but only the team members may speak. The ScrumMaster facilitates the meeting and ensures that the 15 minute time limit is strictly observed. A skilled scrummaster and experienced team will learn to keep the mood light in the standups, and over time will establish group norms and traditions to make the standups their own. Standups are not intended to solve problems or go into any detail on a topic, rather, they are a mechanism for surfacing topics that may need attention of a few team members, and can be discussed and resolved after the meeting has adjourned. In addition, impediments surfaced in the daily standup should be addressed by the ScrumMaster within no more than 24 hours.
Story Tasks (Things to Do) Work in Progress (WIP) Blocked/Impeded Done Whole team accountability
During the Sprint Review, the Product Owner, stakeholders, customers, and anyone interested in attending, is invited to see the product demo. The product owner and stakeholders are invited to comment and give feedback during the review session, and at a later date, that feedback will be reviewed, analyzed, and prioritized in the Product Backlog for consideration in subsequent sprints.
The Retrospective meeting is held at the end of every sprint and is the team ’s opportunity to reflect on what worked well and what didn’t and commit to specific actions for the next sprint to address those items that did not go well.
