introduction to scrum a seven minute training video with details on what you
need to start using scrum today
this video is intended for people are just getting started with the scrum
framework and need a quick primer
hi my name is Steve Stedman and i am the founder of utility software
in this video we will cover the basics behind scrum and we'll take a look at
how scrum compares to waterfall development and we'll examine the three
rolls three artifacts and three ceremonies that makeup scrum
first let's take a look at how scrum compares the older alternative of
waterfall development waterfall typically goes through a lengthy
planning process which could take several months followed by building the
product which again could take many months and then testing the product
reviewing and eventually deploying the product at this point you may end up
bringing the wrong product market if market demand or technology has changed
since the original plan was developed
there are several problems with this method first of all the planning must be
completed before any work begins
and in most cases the planning is done without entirely understanding the
project once development is being done
oftentimes things get sent back to the planning phase and the project either
needs to start over or the developers are just criticized for not understand
the plan this cycle can happen many times when development is done building
the product it gets thrown over the fence
test where when problems are encountered it bounces back to development and
sometimes back to planning the same issues occur in the next few steps with
lots of back step in and doing over this can lead to leg times and many months to
several years in order to get a product out the door with scrum and
implementation of agile
the process is broken up into smaller pieces first we do just enough planning
to get started with building the minimal feature set we build what was planned
next we test and review that small feature set and get it ready to ship
when that cycle is complete we end up with a potentially shippable product
this process usually occurs in a time period of one to three weeks
this is then repeated time and time again reducing the time from planning to
development to testing each time through the planning process
we're doing just enough planning to complete the next incremental release
you end up with several incremental releases called Sprint's a sprint
usually takes from one to three weeks and you just keep repeating these
Sprint's until your product is feature complete
sometimes you may end up shipping your product after the second sprint or the
third or the fourth or even further but you eventually end up with a shipping
product
in scrum there are three key roles that are needed for the framework to work
well first the product owner
this is the person responsible for defining the features that are needed in
the product the product owner has the bright ideas that turn into products
the scrum master is a servant leader to the team responsible for protecting the
team and the process running the meetings and keeping things going
the team can be made up of developers testers writers and anyone else that
helps in building the product team members often play multiple roles
some days developers may end up doing tests or testers may end up writing
either way the team works to get the product done
there are three artifacts or documents that are used in scrum
first the product backlog this is where product owners create a prioritized list
of features known as user stories that could go into the product this list
evolves and changes priority with every sprint user stories are a way of
describing a feature set that follows the as a user I need something so that
reason format
this will way of phrasing a user story allows the product owner to specify the
right amount of detail for the team to estimate the size of the task the
highest priority user stories go into the sprint backlog these get estimated
for size and are committed to for the next sprint burn down charts show the
progress during a sprint on the completion of tasks in the sprint back
lock this chart should approach zero points as the work is being completed
there are three ceremonies that makeup scrum think of these as meetings or
discussions sprint planning is where the product owner scrum master and team meet
to discuss the user stories and estimate their relative sizes
the daily scrum is a brief stand-up meeting where the team discusses what
they have completed since the previous meeting
what they're working on and anything that might be blocked or need help
the sprint review and retrospective occurs at the end of the sprint this is
where the team demonstrates the completed work to the product owner and
then the team discusses what they can do to improve the process going forward
let's bring it all together and take a look at the scrum workflow start with
the product backlog which is where the product owner builds a list of the
bright ideas and features that could go into the product the product owner
prioritizes the list and brings the top items to the team
sprint planning is where the team product owner and scrum master discuss
the top priority user stories
determining what can go into the next print the output from the sprint
planning meeting is the sprint backlog
this is a list of user stories that have been committed to for the next print the
entire team and product owner have a solid understanding of what each of the
user stories involves based on the discussions from the sprint planning
meetings the sprint is a one two three week time box where the work committed
to in the sprint backlog has worked on through to completion
during the Sprint the daily scrum occurs as a stand-up meeting with the team
discusses what they have completed and what they are working on as well as any
blocked items
the outcome of the sprint is a potentially shippable product
potentially shippable means that the product owner can decide if it is ready
to ship or if there are any additional features needed before it ships
at the end of the sprint a sprint review and sprint retrospective meaning occurs
the sprint review is where the team showcases their work to the product
owner and the retrospective is where the team works on what they can do to
improve their process
repeat this workflow for each sprint now for a software solution to help manage
the workflow utility has been built around the scrum process to help people
filling the three scrum rolls manage the three artifacts and better run the three
ceremonies visit utility calm for a free trial and traditional scrum training
