Important elements when working in Scrum
Author of the article: Dmitry Kurdyumov
Participated in Agile transformations in the largest companies in Russia (Alfa Bank, MTS, X5 retail group), with international experience in startups abroad.
In the world of product development, flexibility and speed of feedback are important. Teams must manage many risks associated with business and technical uncertainty during development.
Despite the attempt to create the best plans, new inputs always arise in the process that we did not know about in advance. And if you don’t adapt in time, there is a high risk of ending up in the wrong place. This is exactly what the Scrum framework was created for.
In this article, we'll look at the most important elements that balance predictability and flexibility to deliver the highest value to customers.
Sprint
Sprint – this is a fixed and stable time period for organizing the development and creation of a ready-made increment, which we can show to users and interested parties. Scrum limits the sprint length to one month, but most Scrum teams choose a shorter sprint length. Here it is worth focusing on the level of uncertainty and changes; the higher the uncertainty, the shorter the sprint length.
What value do sprints bring to business?
First of all, it is reducing the risk of losses. Since Scrum is development under conditions of uncertainty, sprints help manage this uncertainty by planning work for a short period, in the form of a sprint, and then receiving feedback to decide where to move next.
This does not mean that Scrum lacks long-term goals and plans. This only gives us the opportunity to adapt often and quickly reduce risks.
On the other hand, sprints provide greater predictability of business results. Each sprint, the team commits to making an increment (a completed piece of product).
Below we will look at the key principles of how a Scrum team works to deliver a ready and valuable increment every sprint.
Regular product increment
What is it needed for?
It is important for business and Product owners to understand whether what we do increases the value of the product and improves product metrics?
If the team completes the work partially during the sprint, this will lead to the accumulation of debt, lower transparency and the inability to test a new product increment on users to determine its business effect.
Therefore, by creating a ready-made increment every sprint, we provide the opportunity to receive feedback and understand whether the new increment affects the value of the product or whether it is worth abandoning or improving it.
Customer-centric elements in the product backlog
If you want your team to learn how to create a complete increment every sprint that can be viewed, shared with users, and learned from, you should start with a backlog approach to describing items.
The following approaches are often used in Scrum
User stories are descriptions of requirements in user language that reflect their needs. I, as a “role”, want a “need” to “goal”.
Job stories are a way of describing scenarios for using a product, focusing on a specific task that the user wants to complete.
How do these approaches help?
First, they focus the team on solving the client's problem or task instead of implementing a specific task.
Secondly, in the acceptance criteria and when discussing stories, you formulate an image of the result.
Thirdly, your task is not considered completed until it is completely completed and all the work within the story is done. This encourages teamwork towards a common result.
Sprint Goal
Sprint Goal is an important element of a Scrum team that provides focus for all members and is the team's top priority during the sprint.
It often happens that tasks are planned during sprint planning, but the goal is not formed.
This leads to everyone dryly performing their tasks without an image of the result at the end. Very often at the end we have a completed set of tasks, but not an increment that brings value to clients.
What are the benefits of a sprint goal?
Firstly the Sprint Goal unites the team and everyone is working in the same direction.
Secondly, the Sprint Goal defines the top priority. We always do what concerns the Sprint Goal first.
Thirdly, if there is a Goal, there is a higher probability come to real results – incremental rather than just a completed set of tasks.
Fourth, the sprint goal allows the team adapt the plan as the sprint progresses to ultimately deliver value to the clientrather than just blindly following the plan. Because during the sprint, new inputs are learned and refinement of the plan becomes the normal work of the Scrum team during the Daily Scrum. Below is a picture illustrating this process.
Also, in my practice, I noticed better motivation and desire to achieve the goal in the team when there is a good goal for the sprint. They really try harder, coordinate their actions independently, use their heads, and not just complete tasks.
Good Scrum starts with a goal around which the team works.
Working in a sprint towards the goal
The team's goal in a sprint is not to complete tasks, but to achieve the sprint goal. This is important, because during the sprint, new inputs and details are learned that need to be taken into account in order to achieve the goal.
During a sprint, the team has a series of events:
Sprint planning
Daily Scrum
Sprint review
Retrospective
Regular PBR (Product backlog refinement) process
Sprint planning
The entire Scrum team, including the PO and the development team, participates in sprint planning. Third party experts may also be involved.
When planning, it is important to determine what we want to do and how we will do it.
The Sprint Goal is the most important planning attribute. The sprint goal defines what the sprint is for and what the team should achieve. For example – Release new functionality, Improve the stability and quality of the application, Submit the application for review on Stores, and so on.
A plan is drawn up based on the goal, but you need to understand that during the sprint it can be refined and completely load the team with planning – a bad pattern. Always during a sprint, details appear that can be taken into account to achieve the goal. This is the flexibility and value of Scrum – that we don't just do tasks, but that we are always striving for new goals in every sprint.
Daily Scrum
In a short daily Daily Scrum meeting, the team plans the day and discusses obstacles. At this meeting, the task is to make changes to the sprint plan and define tasks for the day, as well as identify key obstacles that are hindering the team. It is important that this is not a reporting meeting to the Scrum Master or some other manager, but a meeting for the team to plan work and synchronize
Sprint review
At this Scrum meeting, the team invites stakeholders and even users to show the results of the sprint.
Key goals are to obtain feedback and discuss next opportunities for product development.
Therefore, the meeting is divided into 2 parts:
Demonstration of increment and collection of feedback and discussion
Discuss plans and next steps
Both the PO and the entire development team are present at the meeting. And it is very important to involve Stakeholders in the meeting.
Retrospective
A regular sprint retrospective or look back helps the team discuss obstacles, problems, and inefficiencies in processes that hindered the team's performance in the sprint. And the output is always an Action plan with actions to change processes, interactions or other improvements that the team agrees on.
Conclusion
Scrum allows you to create a predictable and flexible process for the product development team. The main value of the framework is flexibility and focus on results. This helps to develop the product in balance with the expectations of stakeholders and user feedback and to abandon unnecessary items in a timely manner.
Don't forget about the important elements of the framework and you will benefit from Scrum.
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