SCRUM Development Process - Agile Project Management

Here we are going to discuss about Agile Project Management with SCRUM. Nowadays most of companies started to using SCRUM development process. Its practice to follow in project/product development framework. This process is most suited to the project that requirements frequently changing and adding more enhancements.

Definition:
An iterative, incremental process for developing any product or managing any work. It produces a potentially shippable set of functionality at the end of every iteration.

Attributes of SCRUM process:
• An agile process to manage and control development work.
• A wrapper for existing engineering practices.
• A team-based approach to iteratively, incrementally develop systems and products when requirements are rapidly changing
• A process that controls the chaos of conflicting interests and needs.
• A way to improve communications and maximize co-operation.


SCRUM Process Diagram:



Detailed SCRUM Process Diagram:




Terminology:•

Product Owner

o This is the person who makes decisions about features that will be added to the project
o This person may be a customer, but can be a person in the company who acts as the customer’s representative
o This person will be the ultimate judge of a projects successful completion

SCRUM Master

o Equivalent to a project manager for a small project or a team lead on a larger project, with a size of 4 to 8 people.
o The scrum master ensures that the rules of scrum are followed
 By the development team
 By management and customers

Product Backlog

o The product backlog is generally equivalent to the requirements document in traditional projects
o Features are added to the product backlog and include the following information
 ID
 Priority
• Multiple priority scales can be used
o 1-5
o Showstopper, Major, Minor, Trivial
 Description
 Preliminary Hour Estimate
o It can also contain
 Customer/Contract information
 Requirement Owner
 Anticipated Version
 Assigned Development Team
 Assigned QA Team
 Feature Status
o Features are prioritized by the Product Owner

SPRINT

• A Sprint is a single development cycle
• Developers work as a team during a sprint to complete tasks that are defined at the beginning of the sprint
• Typical duration of 4 weeks, but is flexible
• The output of the sprint should be completed software modules that provide demonstrable capability
• The entire team is responsible for all of the tasks on the sprint
o If someone finishes their tasks early, they help others complete the remaining tasks
• The end date of the sprint is fixed. Tasks must get dropped from a sprint rather than move the end date
• Sprint Planning Meeting:
• Occurs at the beginning of sprint
• Features from the product backlog are broken down into smaller tasks and assigned to developers
• Estimates refined by developers based on implementation responsibility
• Attended by development team, product owner and the scrum master
The scrum master runs the meeting

Sprint Backlog

• The Sprint Backlog tracks the progress of an individual sprint
• All of the tasks that were defined during the sprint planning meeting are listed on the sprint backlog
• The estimates for tasks are stored and updated on this document
• Daily SCRUM:
• Daily progress meeting
o Attended by the development team
o Run by the scrum master
• Three questions answered by each team member
o What did you do yesterday?
o What is keeping you from accomplishing your tasks?
o What do you plan on doing today?
• Estimates are updated on the sprint backlog
o Number of hours worked are logged
o Hours remaining are “re-estimated”
• Information gathered at these meetings can be used to track progress of tasks


SCRUM Rules
• The dates are fixed
o If tasks are not going to be finished, they are dropped from this iteration
o Priorities are VERY important
• No Feature Creep
o Features may not be added to a sprint by the product owner after the Sprint Planning Meeting
o Exception – the burn down chart shows that all tasks will be completed early and the team agrees to take on the next task from the product backlog
o Sprints can be cancelled and restarted by the product owner if there is a high priority need
• All tasks must be TESTED to be complete
o Developers must COMPLETE the tasks
o The next sprint will start immediately after this one ends, so there will not be time for revisiting this task


Challenges

o It takes practice by the entire team
o People tend to over-commit during the Sprint Planning Meeting
o Proper estimates must include time for:
 Design
 Development
 Reviews (Design and Code)
 Unit Test Creation
 Testing
 Integration