Scrum take quality to the next level

INDIUM SOFTWARE
An Independent Software Testing Firm
SCRUM – Take Quality to the Next
Level
“Business Assurance through Quality Assurance”

© 2014 Indium Software
ENHANCING SOFTWARE QUALITY
Every picture tells a story
2

Agenda
3
Introduction
Agile’s Scrum
Storyboard
Speed of Development
Control Mechanism
How Scrum Controls Risks
Inference
Benefits
Shortcomings in Scrum
Conclusion

Introduction
4
• Traditional models like Waterfall and v-Models
seem to be fading away
The
Past
• Agile and its processes have the limelight now
The
Present
• Cycles that provide visibility into early error
detection
• A delivery method for frequent releases
The
Need

Agile’s Scrum
5
Formation is Rugby
When a formation brings success to Rugby, why not try it for software development?
The need for a formation that is highly comfortable with rotating pieces, one that is ready to
handle all the quick moves, formed the basis for inventing Agile's Scrum.

Storyboard
6
A Point Of Sales web application that is currently being
developed needs to be tested
Requirement
2 manual testers
Test team size
6 weeks
Timeline
50 story points
Total story points
in backlog
License (9); EDI (6); Order Entry (8); Report (13); Pricing (7);
Maintenance (7)
Modules
(Assigned points)

Speed of Development - Scrum
7
Plans and assigns prioritized backlog to releases and teams
Has fixed iteration cycles
As a process, Scrum:
At the beginning of an iteration: The Product owner prioritizes the Product backlog
During iteration: The Team focuses on completing the items they committed to
At the end of an iteration: Team demonstrates working code to the relevant stakeholders and conducts
a retrospection
Advantages
With the Product owner carefully prioritizing the
story points, a majority of them in the backlog will
get into the iteration grouped based on modules
Because length cannot be altered, planning is done
accordingly
Every phase in the process being religiously
followed helps avoid slippage

Speed of Development – Kanban and XP
8
Kanban
• Iterations are not prescribed
• No specific process flow on planning,
process improvement or release
• The scenario would be mostly event-
driven picking items based on
resource availibility leading to self-
limiting of work
• Very little governance over the
system
XP
• XP starts with pair programming on
the design phase and changes over
to test-driven development and
continuous integration
• The possibility of bottlenecks is high
with this continuous integration and
infrequent integration may lead to
severe impact
• Code freeze is delayed because of
uncertainty

Control Mechanism - Scrum
9
The Product owner being clear about the desired output for a release choses the right items for a Sprint
Once into a sprint, the requirement cannot be altered
The Product owner cannot alter items when already made part of a sprint
Close tracking system reflecting every update keeps the entire team on the same board
Advantages
Similar requirements are bundled together knowing
the need of the customer
No focus shift on requirements
A leak proof tracking system that is always up to
date on progress

Control Mechanism – Kanban and XP
10
Kanban
• The Product owner can make changes to
the Backlog and Selected columns any time
he likes
• The backlog is just a wish list of the entire
team, in no particular order and no one is
specific has complete control over it
• Prioritization is not the focus
• Switching focus back and forth can lead to
quality dips
XP
• The backlog items are selected by the
developers
• Does not have sets of specific development
process
• Emphasis is not on avoiding
communication gaps
• Does not follow any specific tracking
system

Scrum and Kanban Boards
11
Scrum:
Items picked are made part of
the committed list
Once picked to be committed
a change cannot be made
Items then move from
committed to Ongoing to
Done
Kanban:
The whole workflow is on the
same board
The “selected” column
contains the high priority
items, with a Kanban limit of
2

How Scrum Controls Risks
12
Scrum with strict timelines, it is only
wise to have the estimates right.
Buffer for these unforeseen risks.
Risk assessment fits most naturally
into the release planning and
product backlog grooming sessions.
Risk mitigation in Scrum:
Pick items that represent risks
Assess the probability of the risk
occurring
Assign points to the risk based
on the impact
Measure total risk in unit points
Track the risk and the product
backlog items in a similar
manner
Challenges that might arise:
Difficulty in coming up with size
estimation for unfamiliar features
How one understands a feature may
not be another’s perspective

Inference - Speed
13
Scrum: With clearly defined
requirements, Scrum kick starts with
highest number of story points and with
regular catch-ups and no deviation it
meets deadline with ease.
Kanban: With the freedom to change
the backlog and selected columns and
where estimation is optional, leads to
extended time lines.
XP: With the refactoring and TDD
approach and the possibility of regular
integration issues block progress.

Inference - Quality
14
Scrum: A good combination of
requirements are chosen by the
Product owner. And clarity in feature
helps in early defect detection.
Kanban: With the wish list / priority
changing and changes welcome all the
way, there is no proving a bug is valid
or not.
XP: Lack of clarity leads to finding
invalid bugs impacting development
focus. Also the effects of refactoring
yields results only in the later stages of
testing.

Inference - Cost
15
Scrum: In first few weeks, Scrum finds
a bundle of defects and gets done with
it. The earlier fixed the more cost
efficient it is. Also effort reduces and
testers can be freed up for parallel
releases.
Kanban: Kanban cuts short in
committed work resulting in need for
additional time and money.
XP: Unclear requirement can shift
focus therefore leading to effort / cost
variance.

Benefits
16
Key Lever
Scrum
vs.
XP and Kanban
Reasons
Test execution Faster by 25%
• Scrum master's complete control
• Focused requirements
Defect detection Increased by 30%
• Invalid defects count is minimal saving
time on review
Quality Increased by 35% • Regular catch-ups preventing de-railing
Backlog Reduced by 35%
• Stories for the sprint from the product
backlog is selected by the Product owner
which assures the right requirements are
picked
Cost Does not exceed budget
• Work is done earlier can help release
resource from current Sprint
• WIP at the end of Sprint can cause
extension exceeding budget

Shortcomings in Scrum
17
Scrum rigidly uses
velocity as a key
performance
indicator
Unless the Scrum
team is quite small,
the team will rarely
work one issue at a
time
Unstable velocity
while working on
dissimilar projects
Role accountability

Conclusion
18
Requirements
not fully
developed?
Need
flexibility?
Does your
environment
keep
changing?
Play
Agile’s
Scrum!

19
Thank You
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Scrum take quality to the next level

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