Introduction to Scrum

Scrum Process Overview

A practitioner of Scrum describes it as a "hyper-productivity technique." Scrum
increases the relevant productivity (that productivity that generates used
products) far beyond popular and expensive fads. Scrum is not an acronym. First
used to describe hyper-productive development in 1987 by Ikujiro Nonaka and
Hirotaka Takeuchi, Scrum refers to the mechanism used in rugby for getting an
out-of-play ball back into play. Scrum generates productivity improvements by
implementing a framework that empowers teams and thrives on change. A set of
rules and corresponding terminology are used to reinforce such common sense
techniques as small teams, daily status meetings, not interrupting people who
are working, and a single source of work prioritization. Scrum's two pillars are
team empowerment and adaptability :

• Team empowerment : Once teams are given work to do, they are
responsible for figuring out how to do it. The team does the best it can
during each increment. While a team works, their only interaction with
management is to tell management what is getting in their way and needs
to be removed to improve their productivity.
• Adaptability : Scrum uses "punctuated equilibrium". The team maintains
an equilibrium during each increment, insulated from outside disturbance.
Increments are punctuated every thirty days so that the team and
management can evaluate what should be done during the next
increment; this decision is based on what the team has accomplished and
what the environment dictates is the next most important thing to do.

Once Scrum is underway, teams and management find it easy to focus, every
request is easily evaluated by, "What's that got to do with delivering the code?"

The "Flip"
Scrum is gradually implemented to get everyone used to the mechanics. Then,
we do the flip.In the flip, management is there for the development teams, rather
than the development teams being there for management. Management focuses
daily on two things :

1. Is there anything in the way of the developers, and the removal of these
impediments.
2. What is most important software for these teams to built.

Teams focus on one thing : building quality software (and ignoring everything
else).The flip returns management to their most effective role : determining
the right things to do, and removing anything in the way of the teams being
able to build software. In this way, the teams are as effective and productive
as possible.

In many organizations, management gets in the way of the teams. This is

 inadvertent, but asking for reports, weekly status meetings, presentations to
their boss, participation in offsites are all tremendous impediments ... both
in time and the way that they interrupt the thought process that creates
good systems.

The flip has management attend daily team status meetings - where the
team shares status with each other, and then lets management know what
can be done to make them more effective. The flip is that management is
there for the team once they start developing. This is a stark contradiction
to most development environments.

The flip is subtle but powerful. Managers live and breathe to help the teams.
Nothing is more important. If the team needs meeting rooms, an executive
can do nothing better than move out of their corner office to make sure the
team keeps charging ahead.

Using Scrum & Sprint in Website Project Management

Developing state of the art Web based marketing projects is best done using
state of the art process management techniques. In terms of “fastest growing
trends in managing Web projects” the leading contender is a process called
scrum, part of the Agile development process. Scrum's been so successful that
anyone managing a software development project should consider using it,
especially anyone managing any kind of Website project.

The scrum process has been used to develop Web-based projects at Yahoo,
Google, Adobe, the BBC and hundreds of other major companies. Wherever it's
applied, the scrum process almost universally increases the projects chance's of
success, and makes the development process much more manageable, and
less full of surprises.

The scrum process is so simple that adopting it is nearly transparent to upper

management, and it rarely needs formal approval. If a project manager chooses
to use the scrum method there's not much to stop them. It's effective for nearly
any size project, even those with three or four people on the team.

Simply put, the scrum method, or scrum for short, breaks a clearly defined
project down into several parts to be done sequentially, and monitors the
progress of all team members through a daily meeting designed to identify
roadblocks and resolve as them needed to stay on schedule. The scrum
development process includes a set of practices and procedures, like rules for
meetings, and a set of roles to be assigned to key people.

According to scrum lore the philosophy of how the scrum process views roles is
best expressed by a story about a chicken trying to talk a pig into opening a
breakfast restaurant named “Ham and Eggs.” The pig declines, telling the
chicken, “I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved.”

In the scrum world, the pigs are the people who are working on the project 100%,
whose careers are really on the line, and the chickens are the people who are
only partly concerned with the development process, like marketing, sales or
documentation, or who other wise represent the end user or customer. For this
reason, only team members classified as pigs can speak at meetings.

Scrum's have three types of active roles, or “pig” roles; the project manager, the
scrum master, and all team members who qualify as pigs, including the
programmers, QA engineers, graphic artists and copywriters.

The project manager runs the project as usual, and the scrum master is
responsible for overseeing and enforcing the scrum process (though the PM can
opt to also be scrum master).

At the beginning of the scrum the scrum master holds a meeting (limited to four
hours) that determines and clearly specifies exactly what features will be
included in the project, a feature set referred to as the Scrum Backlog. The
meeting then allocates the development time required for those features into a
sequence of time periods called sprints, which are usually 15 to 30 days long,
and assigns people to each feature.

Each sprint has an assigned number of features to accomplish, known as the

Sprint Backlog. By the end of the sprint all features in the Sprint Backlog should
be complete, and by the last sprint, all of the features in the Scrum Backlog
should be finished.

The decisions made at the initial meeting are entered into a project schedule
chart similar to a GANTT chart, referred to as a burn down chart. The columns
represent days and the rows represent team members and each cell tracks the
hours remaining. The number of hours each person on the team will need to
finish his work is determined, and entered into the column for day one in that
person's row. Each day, each team member must update the numbers of hours
remaining to accomplish the task by deducting the hours they actually spent
working on the assignment.

Once the scrum has started meetings are held daily, with the following rules:

Each meeting is exactly 15 minutes long, no matter how many people are
attending. This will encourage people not to waste words in their answers.
Every person at the meeting who is allowed to speak must answer three
questions at each meeting. These are: What have you accomplished since the
last meeting? What will you have done by the next meeting? What, if anything, is
getting in your way?

Another rule is that people should always stand at sprint meetings. The only
exception to this rule should be who ever is designated to record notes of the
meeting. (If you don't feel like standing for 15 minutes, you can sit down and also
take notes, or at least pretend to, which is usually good enough.)

The meeting should be held at the same time in the same room everyday.
Attendees, including senior management, may be subject to penalties for being
late. Sprint teams at some companies require tardy attendees to wear a rubber
chicken hung from their neck for the duration of the meeting.

At the end of the last sprint, and the development phase is over, a meeting is
held to evaluate how well the scrum went, and to identify changes that need to
be made in processes and procedures to improve quality and efficiency.

Over time, a company can learn to use the scrum process very effectively, and
scrum usually produces good results even for those new to it. However, those
new to scrum should do the following. Since the scrum process develops a few
features at a time it is critical to allow enough time at the end of the process for
integration testing to make sure all the parts work properly together as a
seamlessly integrated application. Too often it is assumed just because a
particular feature may work by itself (passing what is called “unit testing”) it will
also work OK with all the other features in “integration testing.” Often, it won't.
There should be at least one sprint solely dedicated to integration testing, and
more if possible.

With that caveat considered, the scrum process promises a great deal of return
for very little effort. Few development processes are as simple to implement, and
yet so effective. If you have a software project coming up, you should consider
using the scrum process. It would be hard to do better.