Scrum: Sprints not MarathonsAndrew Male

University of Bath

History

• 1995 Ken Schwaber & Jeff Sutherland design Scrum

• 2001 Agile Manifesto

• 2001 Schwaber & Mike Beedle co-author Agile Software Development with Scrum

• 2006 Scrum Alliance became a legal entity

Agile

• The term covers a set of ideals or aims “Agile Mainfesto”

• Iterative and Incremental

• Empirical approach

• Inspect and adapt

• Embrace change

Agile

• The term covers a set of ideals or aims “Agile Mainfesto”

• Iterative and Incremental

• Empirical approach

• Inspect and adapt

• Embrace change

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools• Working software over comprehensive documentation• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation• Responding to change over following a plan

Agile

• The term covers a set of ideals or aims “Agile Mainfesto”

• Iterative and Incremental

• Empirical approach

• Inspect and adapt

• Embrace change

The Scrum Process

Diagram by - http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com

• Product Owner

• Scrum Team - suggested maximum of 8

• Scrum Master

Scrum Roles

Estimating the backlog

• Product backlog is estimated by the team

• Can use ideal days, hourly estimates or story points

• There should be just enough discussion to estimate

• Use estimates to decide what goes into the sprint backlog

Sprints

• Time boxed between 2 - 4 weeks

• Results in a deliverable product to the client

• Projects need to be vertically sliced to work in iterations

• Continue to iterate while there is value to deliver

Daily Scrum

• What have you done since the last Scrum?

• What will you do between now and the next Scrum?

• What got in your way?

Sprint review

• Present the product to the Product Owner

• Decide if the sprint goal has been achieved

Sprint retrospective

• Look back at the sprint

• We are looking for answers to the following questions:

• What went well?

• What should we do differently next time?

• What did we learn?

• What confuses us?

A changing environment“... if we decide we need a system for something we set a project group up, write a specification, go out to tender, evaluate the tenders, go on site visits, deliberate, and come up with a preferred solution (or decide to develop something ourselves). We them move into implementation phase, and by the time a system is live it could be 2 years later (or more in some cases). By then the market has changed dramatically, as have the user requirements. In contrast, we will implement a new mail service for students in about 10 weeks by outsourcing to a innovative company.”

Christine Sexton - Director IT Services - University of Sheffield

Build a Lego farm

• Estimate all the work to be done

• Plan the work that will go into the first sprint (create sprint backlog)

• 3 iterations (sprints)

• Demo after each sprint

Farm Scrum

A story card

Estimation

• Estimate story points on a scale - 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

• Story points are relative measures of the effort involved

• We are better and quicker at relative estimation

• Group activity - planning poker can help

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer wants a sty to stop his pigs wandering off

• Holds 5 pigs

• Space for 2 troughs

• Pigs can’t wander off

• Has a gate for access

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The ducks need a ponds to live on

• Has a small island in the middle

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer wants a trailer for his tractor

• Can carry 4 farm animals

• Only uses one set of wheels

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer wants a house

• Has a pitched roof

• Two entrances

• 3 windows

• Large enough for him and his wife

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer needs a trough to feed his pigs

• Big enough to feed three pigs at a time

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer wants a grain silo for his harvest

• Must hold 25g of grain

• Grain stored through removable lid

• Access hatch at the bottom

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer needs a kennel for his sheep dog

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer’s wife needs 3 flower tubs around the house

• Big enough for 2 bunches of flowers each

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer’s wife keeps show chickens. She needs a coop to protect them from

the cunning Mr Fox

• Has two perches for chickens to roost

• Raised off the ground

• Sloping ramp that can be removed

• Door that closes

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer needs a barn for storing hay

• Twice as big at the farmer’s house

• Has two floors

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer needs a shed to store his old rusty tractor in

• The tractor fits inside

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer wants a new LEGO 3000 combine harvester which will make his farm 3x more profitable

Photo by Peppered - http://www.flickr.com/photos/peppered/

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer needs a small paddock for his miniature ponies

• Fence is high enough to keep the ponies in

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100

The farmer’s dog is lazy so he wants a quad bike so he can round

up his sheep

• Must have 4 wheels!

• Farmer can sit on it securely

Sprint planning

• 2 minutes to decide what you will do in the first 5 minute sprint

• Write the total points in the first “Points to complete” box

• Don’t start building yet!

Sprint Review

• Demo what you have done to the Product Owner

• Incomplete stories should be re-estimated based on the remaining work to complete

• You don’t have to continue with a partially completed story

• In the next sprint commit to the same number of points

Retrospective