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Scrum Meaning

Scrum is one of the predominant methodologies, or we can conclude it as a framework with which the developers can efficiently address difficult problems. Being a lightweight framework that manages agile projects, it can successfully govern each type of iterative and incremental projects.

It emphasizes splitting a complex problem into several small phases whereby making it easier to review and adapt all throughout its way.

You can do the following with scrum:

1. With scrum, you can write few plans and do a lot in a short iteration or a circle, which is termed as a sprint.
2. Instead of working in distinct groups, you work as a dedicated team.
3. At the end of an iteration, you can constantly deliver a functioning project.
4. You can actually improvise your project by receiving a constant response from the customers.

The primary focus of an agile scrum master is to assign individuals in a cross-functional team along with the desired information, tools, and skills that are required to finish off their job. The scrum master holds much more privilege than a project manager in taking authoritative functions, i.e., managing several different software development processes and stages. From unblocking the obstacles to procuring tools and getting the information shared between teams, the scrum master is seen to perform several different tasks no matter what it takes to complete the project; it keeps everyone on task until it is done.

For each project, the scrum master makes sure to perform the following tasks and meetings:

• Daily Scrum: Just like how the opponent rugby team forms a cluster so that the scrum can restart the game, the scrum master works in a similar manner. It brings the team altogether and conducts the meeting to review the status of the teamwork. It considers the previous day’s update, what are those key points to be focused on for that day, and the obstacles restricting them from doing their best at work.
• Sprint planning: The team comes altogether at the beginning of each “sprint” to have a discussion about the goals of the coming sprint and the items that are going to be a part of this sprint. In order to make sure that everyone is staying on the same page, it provides them with a framework to work from.
• Sprint Demo: Whenever the sprint ends, the team demonstrates their completed work product for that particular sprint. The purpose behind this meeting is to keep everyone updated and encourage them by giving extra feedbacks, which eventually results in a better product in the end.
• Financials: In order to keep everyone on track, there are some companies where the team coordination is managed by the scrum master. The scrum master raises the awareness as when things start to run off-course.
• Status Report: The scrum master provides a detailed overview each week about the project so that it would be easy for everyone to know how far they have reached till date.
• Critical project decisions: Decision-making is one of the biggest tasks in any project. The scrum master plays a vital role in making quick and smart decisions, which will ultimately result in formulating the conclusion. Since the scrum master comprehends a holistic view related to any particular project, it enables the team in decision-making when the scope, budget, or other elements of the project gets altered.

Benefits of Scrum Methodology

1. REVENUE

One can incrementally create new features inside the sprint with the help of S­crum. Whenever a sprint is ended, the scrum master facilitates the release of a hypothetically Increment of Software/Product much earlier in the development cycle. Despite waiting for the software to get finalized, it empowers to grasp the benefits in the former stage.

2. QUALITY

Scrum plays an essential role in the development cycle of a product, especially when it comes to quality management. It maintains the quality by rigorously testing each sprint whereby it inspects the working of any Product or software on a regular basis as it develops. The scrum team keeps on checking for issues to get them resolved in time without hampering the quality of the product.

3. TRANSPARENCY

Both the product owner and stakeholder can actively participate during the product development phase. It is considered to be one of the most transparent approaches, especially when it comes to project management. With the help of this approach, one can easily understand his/her roles and responsibilities.

4. COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION

In short, we can understand the term daily scrum as short meet-ups that are often held to ensure whole team members have regular interaction, detect roadblocks, resolve problems and assimilate innovative ideas altogether.

5. DELIVER OFTEN VALUE

The scrum methodology emphasizes delivering valuable services to its clients, which is one of the main concerns of software project management.

6. PROFITABILITY

Each of the scrum attributes pays off by smart working that eventually results in greater efficiency and less wastage. If you withstand all of its ethics as well as ideologies, you will see all these factors bestow high profit.

7. SUSTAINABILITY

Scrum is an agile framework that is specifically designed to attain sustainability. The scrum momentum can be easily maintained if it is correctly implemented by its team members.

8. SPEED TO MARKET

Research suggests about 80% of all market leaders were first to market. As well as the higher revenue from incremental delivery, agile development supports the practice of early and regular releases.

9. MORE ENJOYABLE

The active participation of Scrum team members leads to a healthy work environment. If the people work peacefully, the quality of their work will be more effective and efficient.

Scrum framework

The scrum framework comprises of the three following categories:

• Scrum Roles
• Events in Scrum
• Scrum Artifacts

Scrum Roles

Following are the three major roles that are defined within the scrum.

• The Product Owner: In order to accomplish the desired result, the product owner manages the product backlog. He is the one who motivates the team member to meet their goals without getting distracted from the vision of the project. Since the product owner is the one responsible for taking major decisions regarding the project, he can question anyone anytime.
• The Scrum Master: The main duty of the scrum master is to look after the team members whether they are following scrum’s theories, rules, and practices as they were intended to be or not. The scrum master makes sure that the Scrum Team gets everything they necessitate for completing their work, which may include removal of roadblocks that restricts the progress, organize meetings, and deals with challenges as well as hurdles.
• The Development Team (Scrum Team): A scrum team is a self-organizing team that aims to deliver goods and services. In order to maximize the effectiveness of the Scrum development team, they are set free to organize themselves and manage their own roles and responsibilities without any hustle.

Events in Scrum

Mainly there are four events that you will come across throughout the process of the scrum. But before you move ahead, let’s discuss “What is Sprint?“.

Basically, a sprint refers to a particular time period during which the scrum team members generate software products.

The four events or ceremonies of Scrum Framework are as follows:

• Sprint Planning: It is a meeting where the work that has to be completed during a sprint is mapped out. The team members are assigned with certain tasks which are to be performed to meet the desired goal.
• Daily Scrum: Daily scrum is also called as a stand-up, which conducts a small team meeting for about 15minute where all the team members have an opportunity to come on the same page and discuss a strategy for the next 24 hours.
• Sprint Review: In the sprint review, the product owner discusses the previous work plans which are yet to be completed or about to complete during that particular sprint. Then, the team members represent the completed task and discuss the difficulties faced by them and how well they handled it.
• Sprint Retrospective: All through the sprint retrospective, the team discusses both positive and negative outcomes and how they fixed them.

Scrum Artifacts

Scrum Artifacts refer to the physical data containing all the details of the project, which is required while developing a product. Scrum Artifacts include:

• Product Backlog: It is a simple document that outlines the list of tasks and every requirement that the final product needs. It is constantly evolving and is never complete. For each individual product in the product backlog, you need to add some additional information like:
  • Description
  • Order based on priority
  • Estimate
  • Value to the business
• Sprint Backlog: It is the list of all items from the product backlog that need to be worked on during a sprint. Based on some prior skills, the team members proceed to sign up for tasks. It is the actual depiction of the work that has to be completed within the sprint by the team members.
• Burndown Chart: It is a graphical illustration of the estimated outstanding work. Typically, the amount of remaining work will feature on the vertical axis with time along the horizontal axis.
• Product Increment: The most important artifact is the product improvement, or in other words, the sum of product work completed during a Sprint, combined with all work completed during previous sprints.

How does a Scrum Process Work?

Step1: Initially, there is a product owner in the Scrum process who is responsible for creating a product backlog, a list of tasks and requirements required by the end product. It successfully prioritizes the product backlog.

Step2: Next, all of the scrum team members get all together to plan for a sprint. After prioritizing the product backlog, the team then decides from where they should actually start working. This is when the subset of product backlog items turns into the sprint backlog.

Step3: Then, there is a daily scrum, which is when all of the scrum team members interact with each other during the sprint to encounter progress as well as issues. This is mainly supervised by the scrum master to make sure that all of the scrum theories, rules, and practices are truly followed by the team members.

Step4: As when the sprint is ended, the product owner organizes a sprint review meeting. In this meeting, the development team reveals whatever they have accomplished so far since the last sprint. And then, the product owner informs about what is yet to be achieved on the product backlog, followed by the estimated time in which the project has to be completed.

Note: At the end of each sprint, the team should have a functioning piece of the product to show for their work.

Step5: Next, the scrum team comes all together in a sprint retrospective meeting, where the team discusses what went well, what did not, and how they could have done it in a better way. This might be due to some technical issue or may be a team member is burdened with tasks. The decision-makers decide how to solve such issues and put up a plan to get rid of them in the next sprint.

Step6: The cycle repeats for the remaining tasks in the product backlog. This goes on until either of the below-mentioned things happen:

• The deadline has been reached.
• The budget is exhausted.
• The product owner is satisfied with the final product.

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