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Everyone who will be involved in Scrum (pigs and chickens alike) should have read and understood the Scrum guide.
Understanding the concepts of Scrum is easy... implementing it is hard!
Scrum may seem complex at first, but it’s simpler than you think. Follow these 8 easy steps to master it.
The Scrum Master plays a key role in the Scrum framework by scheduling and facilitating 3 crucial meetings: the Sprint Review, Retrospective, and Planning. These meetings are essential for reviewing progress, reflecting on performance, and planning future work, helping the team stay aligned and continuously improve.
This is the meeting where the Product Owner accepts or rejects the Product Backlog Items (PBIs) done in the Sprint.
The Team, having prepared for the meeting, presents the PBIs to the Product Owner.
One person, often the Scrum Master, presents a summary to the Product Owner of the PBIs committed at the Sprint Planning meeting and the done PBIs being presented for acceptance. The Team seeks to have more PBIs accepted than originally committed. It is important that the Product Owner knows at the beginning whether The Team believes that they have over or underachieved the Sprint Goal.
At the end of every Sprint, the Development Team performs a Sprint Retrospective, also known as the Retro. The Retro provides an opportunity for the Scrum Team to reflect on what has gone well, what has gone poorly, and what the team wants to change.
Inspect-and-adapt is a key component of the Scrum framework and the Retro gives Scrum Teams an opportunity to learn from their successes and mistakes.
The work to be performed in the Sprint is planned at the Sprint Planning meeting. At the Sprint Planning meeting, the following 3 questions are answered:
- Why is this Sprint valuable?
- What can be delivered in the increment(s) resulting from the upcoming Sprint?
- How will the work needed to deliver the increment(s) be achieved?
Tight project teams have a Daily 'Scrum' every day at the same time.
It was once called a 'stand-up meeting' but that discriminates people in wheelchairs.
It is best to have it standing up, so it's short and to the point. No-one wants to stand around waffling.
In traditional Daily Scrums, each team member answers the same three questions: "What did you do yesterday?", "What are you doing today?", and "Do you have any blockers?". While this format is fine for small teams, it quickly breaks down in larger ones. The meetings become long and repetitive, people zone out while waiting for their turn, and the most important topics often get rushed at the end.
To solve these pain points, use the BREAD format – a structured but flexible approach that scales better and prioritizes unblocking people.
Each step of Scrum is designed to take you towards an outcome, and this is built upon 3 levels of commitment:
The client is generally the Product Owner (PO). They should read the Scrum Guide and watch the Product Owner video to understand their role. It is so important to the success of their project:
- Getting Started - Do you know the Scrum guide?
- Do you know the 8 Steps to Scrum?
- Scrum Master - Do you schedule the 3 Scrum meetings?
- Do you know what happens at a Sprint Review meeting?
- Do you know what happens at a Sprint Retrospective meeting?
- Do you know what happens at a Sprint Planning meeting?
- Methodology - Do you do Daily Scrums (aka stand-up meetings)?
- Do you get through blockers faster with BREAD Daily Scrums?
- Do you know the 3 commitments in Scrum (Product Goal, Sprint Goal, and Definition of Done)?
- Do you know how to be a good Product Owner?
- Backlog - Do you always work in priority order, unless there’s a good reason not to?
- Backlog - Do you know how to create a Sprint Backlog?
- Backlog - Does your Product Owner know how to maintain the backlog?
- Backlog - Do you keep your PBIs smaller than 2 days' effort?
- Done - Do you go beyond 'Done' and follow a 'Definition of Done'?
- Do you have a Definition of Ready?
- Do you include URLs in "Done" tasks and emails?
- Do you review PBIs and react with 👍?
- Estimating - Do you break large tasks into smaller tasks?
- Estimating - Do you know how to size Product Backlog Items (PBIs) effectively?
- Do you estimate “Business Value”?
- Do you have a good technical overview?
- Do you send "Sprint Forecast" and "Sprint Review/Retro" emails to the client?
- Do you record a summary of Sprint Meetings?
- Do you create a Sprint Forecast? (aka The functionality to be developed in the Sprint)
- Do you create a Sprint Review/Retro email?
- Meeting - Do you update your tasks before the Daily Scrum?
- Scrum Meetings - Do you know what to prepare for each meeting?
- Calendar - Do you use a centralized Daily Scrum calendar?
- Tasks - Do you know that every PBI should have an owner?
- Tasks - Do you know to use clear task descriptions?
- Do you understand the implied contract (promises) between Members of the Scrum Team?
- Do you make sure Sprint Reviews are "tick and flick"?
- Done - Do you know to send a 'done' email in Scrum?
- Done - Do you know when to do a “Test Please” in Scrum?
- Done - Do you know how to make sure you deliver a build that’s tested every Sprint
- Do you know how to handle Undone Work (aka V2 for PBIs)?
- Ending a Sprint - Do you know when to remove PBIs from the Sprint?
- Ending a Sprint - Do you know what to do with partially completed PBI?
- Ending a Sprint - Do you know what to do when your Sprint fails?
- Do you know that working in a team is better than on your own? (aka The Ben Darwin rule)
- Do you know how to handle unexpected requests in the middle of a Sprint?
- Do you always know what are you working on?
- Product Owners - Do you know the consequence of disrupting a team?
- Communication - Do you send "Done Videos"?
- Do you know how to record a quick and dirty 'Done Video'?
- Do you use comments with @mentions to track changes in a PBI?
- Scrum – Do you know where to discuss the backlog?
- Do you know which emojis to use in Scrum?
- The Team - Do you encourage multi-skilled teams by leaving your comfort zone?
- Do you work in vertical slices?
- The Team - Do you help your Scrum Master protect and serve The Team?
- The Team - Do you have a Scrum Master outside the Dev Team?
- Planning Meeting - Do you encourage Spikes (aka investigation tasks) when a PBI is inestimable?
- Do you have a war room? (summary)
- The War Room - Does your development room have an electronic task board?
- The War Room - Does your Scrum room have the best Scrum image?
- During a Sprint - Do you know when to create bugs?
- Do you know how DevOps fits in with Scrum?
- Do you use printed 'SSW Story Cards' with your customers in the Spec Review?
- Do you know your agility index?
- Do you know the whole Scrum team is responsible for quality?
- Do you use meaningful PBI titles?
- Do you have a Product Backlog refinement meeting?
- Do you include Acceptance Criteria in your PBIs?
- Do you assign severity levels to PBIs?
- Do you include UAT in each Sprint?