SCRUM Basics
admin July 4th, 2009
Basic concepts of SCRUM include:
1. Product Backlog or Project Backlog
Every project has a list of items that have to be accomplished, as these items are not yet complete, they will be known as the “Product Backlog”. This is a list of every feature or facet of the product; we could also refer to this as the product wishlist.
2. Allocating a priority to each item in the product backlog.
3. Sprints, or ‘work chunk iterations’
In order to achieve all items in the product backlog, these will be allocated to team members, in an iterative, cyclic manner. Each iteration is called a Sprint.
This idea is not new; iterative cycles, that we will now call sprints, have been essential components of project achievement for all time.
One difference is that in Scrum, each iteration or sprint will focus on those items assigned to it with the express purpose of competing those items to a workable state, hence the term - ship working software.
Multiple sprints for each Product Release
For any particular product release, there will usually be a number of sprints defined.
The shorter the product release cycle, the shorter the sprint duration.
Sprint iterations are kept fairly short, and typically may vary from approx. three days to a fortnight in length. I prefer the idea of shorter sprints, which manageable chunks of work allocated to teams during these time intervals.
4. Sprint backlog - the items allocated to be achieved during the sprint.
Typically, only a handful of items are assigned to each sprint, according to a pre-determined priority. It is probably a good idea to prioritise the items to be fully completed within each sprint. These priorities may be based on:-
(a) dependencies between components of the project, and
(b) the importance of features that these items are related to.
5. Monitoring the Project Burn Down
To keep track of current status of the project, add up all the estimated hours of work currently remaining and compare the total to previous days to make sure it is consistently decreasing at a rate that is in accordance with the project expectations and will meet business goals. This is known as the “Burn Down”, and calculating the rate of this project burn down is a major aspect of ‘Scrum’.
6. Charting the Project Burn Down
Maintain a Project Burn Down Chart as a visual display of the project “Burn Down.”
Charting the burn down information is an effective way to visualize the projects’ progress.
7. Defect Backlog
Maintain a defect backlog that is similar to your features backlog but focuses on
bugs rather than features.
For each release of your product, have at least one or two sprints that are dedicated to addressing the top items in your defect backlog.
8. Defect Burndown
In the same way as for the main “Project Backlog”, maintain a chart of the “Defect Burn Down Rate”
Summary
By applying these concepts, any team can implement Scrum successfully and benefit from an efficient software development process.