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2016-11-17 - INTRODUCTION TO SCRUM - A REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

INTRODUCTION TO SCRUM - A REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

Before starting the first Sprint Alex is assigned as the Scrum Product Owner of a new software development project. One of his first tasks is to start requirement engineering. He writes down the most important use-cases and discusses them with the architects, customer representatives and other stakeholders. After collecting the high-level use-cases and requirements, he writes them into the Scrum Product Backlog and initiates an estimation and prioritization session with the architects and some senior developers. As a result of this session all the items in the Scrum Product Backlog have an initial rough estimation and a prioritization. Now he starts to break-down the high-level requirements into smaller-grained user stories. With this list he then calls for the first Sprint Planning meeting.

Introduction to Scrum - A Real World Example across various Scrum Phases and Sprints.

Sprint 1 - Day 0

During the Sprint Planning meeting Alex presents the Scrum Product Backlog items from the highest priority to the lowest. The team clarifies open questions and for each item the team discusses if they have enough capacity, the required know-how and if everything else needed is available. After this discussion they commit to complete the stories 1,2,3,6,7 and 8 until the end of this sprint. The items 4 and 5 cannot be realized in this sprint, as some technical infrastructure is not yet in place.

After the Sprint Planning meeting Frank - the Scrum Master of the team - calls the team to define the details of how the committed items are going to be implemented. The resulting tasks are written down on the cards at the prepared Sprint Task board. Now everyone of the Scrum Team selects a task to work on.

Sprint 1 - Day 1

In the morning the whole team gets together for their Daily Scrum Meeting. Everyone gives a short statement what has been achieved so far, updates the estimation of remaining hours on the cards of the Sprint Task board, tells what he or she is planning to do today and tells if there are any impediments that hinders him to continue his work. Today one of the team members tells that he has problems because he needs a new license for one of the software tools he is using. Frank checks if other team members have the same problem and says that he'll take care of that after the meeting. After 15 minutes everyone goes back to work.

After the meeting Frank updates the Sprint Burndown. Then he calls the software vendor of the tool, orders licenses and forwards them to the people that need them.

Sprint 1 - Day 2

In the morning again the whole team gets together for their Daily Scrum meeting. In the afternoon one of the Scrum team members is unsure about the details of one of the user stories. He calls Alex - Scrum Product Owner- and discusses the open points with him. After the team member finds out what to do, then he can continue with his implementation.

Sprint 1 - Day 28

This is the final day of the first Sprint and Frank -Scrum Master- has invited the team for the Sprint Review Meeting. The team has prepared a machine with the current software implementation. Alex - Scrum Product Owner - sits in front of the machine and checks if the implementation meets his expectations and if the features are documented as required. At the end of the Review Session he concludes:

  • Stories 1,2,6 and 7 are finished as expected.
  • Story 3 couldn't be finished in time and was not presented at all.
  • Story 8 has some points that have to be re-factoring.

In the afternoon the team gets together for the Sprint Retrospective Meeting and discusses what went well during the sprint and what could be improved. One of the feedback is that the team has the feeling that they do not know enough about the overall system architecture. Frank takes the task to invite the system architect to give a more detailed introduction.

Sprint 2 - Day 1

Alex -Scrum Product Owner- adds new items to the Scrum Product Backlog based on his recent customer meetings. Moreover, he adds additional items for the re-factoring of story 8. Alex then invites the team for the Sprint Planning Meeting for Sprint 2. The team discusses and commits to stories with the guidance of Frank -Scrum Master- and the second Sprint begins.

Also remember to have fun, and to visit www.scrum.as for free agile training. You can also do the free exam, maybe you can use the exam to test your team as well - Just get people together and answer the questions together, it can start some good talks.

Author: Steen Lerche-Jensen

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