Scrum has become one of the most widely adopted agile frameworks for product development and team collaboration. With its focus on iterative delivery, transparency, and constant feedback, Scrum empowers cross-functional teams to build products that continuously deliver value to customers. In this short scrum framework overview, we’ll provide a beginners guide to the Scrum framework, its roles, artifacts, and events that enable product teams to work together more effectively.
In following posts we’ll cover related topics, including: user story development and acceptance criteria, kanban boards for sprint tracking and burndown and cumulitive flow charts for velocity tracking.
So, whether you’re new to Scrum, or just looking to brush up your knowledge, this quick post will give you a base understanding of its core components and how they fit together.
We’ll cover:
- A Scrum Framework Overview, including the principles and values behind Scrum methodology
- Key roles like the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and the Development Team
- Scrum artifacts like user stories, product backlogs, and increments
- Sprint planning, standups, reviews, and retrospectives
- How to implement Scrum on a product development team
Adopting Scrum introduces many proven benefits for product teams, including faster time-to-market, higher productivity, and the ability to continuously improve and adapt. By breaking down complex projects into manageable sprints, Scrum allows teams to focus their efforts and regularly produce shippable increments of a product.
Scrum Framework Overview
Scrum is among the most popular and widely used approaches in Agile development. Its primary focus lies in empowering self-organizing teams to deliver business and market value incrementally and is rooted in the principles of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
In Scrum, the development process is divided into short iterations called Sprints, typically lasting from one to four weeks, with many development teams finding that two-week Sprints are optimal for their workflows.
The roles, artifacts, and methods utilized by Scrum teams provide a structured framework that encourages transparency, collaboration, and feedback throughout the entire product development process. These key elements of Scrum are as follows:
The Scrum Team
- Product Owner: This role represents the stakeholders, defines the product’s tactical vision, and prioritizes the product backlog. It is often taken on by the Product Manager in smaller organizations, or is a dedicated position that works alongside the Product Manager in a close capacity representing the product’s strategy and vision.
- Scrum Master: Facilitates the Scrum process, ensures adherence to Scrum principles, and removes any obstacles or impediments that hinder the team’s progress. This role is well suited to a senior member of the development or QA team, but can also be assigned to a project manager who works across several development teams to oversee the larger project or program.
- Development Team: In addition to the Product Owner and Scrum Master, this team often consists of cross-functional development and QA team members responsible for delivering and testing the product increment. These teams self-organize and collaborate to complete the work as agreed upon.
The Product Backlog
- A prioritized list of all desired product features, enhancements, and bug fixes.
- Managed by the Product Owner, who continually refines (grooms) and adjusts it based on feedback and changing requirements.
Sprint
- A time-boxed iteration during which a potentially shippable product increment is created and tested.
- Typically lasts 1-4 weeks, with a consistent duration throughout the project which could last for several months.
Sprint Planning
- This is a key meeting that takes place at the beginning of each Sprint to determine what work will be completed in the upcoming sprint.
- The Product Owner presents the prioritized backlog items, and the Development Team collaborates to select the items they commit to delivering.
- Estimating each deliverable or user story takes place during these planning sessions, these should be collaborative discussions to ensure everyone has a clear understanding of the scope.
Daily Scrum (Daily Stand-up)
- A short daily meeting, usually lasting 15 minutes, where the Development Team synchronizes their activities.
- Each team member answers the following three questions:
- “What did I accomplish yesterday?”,
- “What will I do today?”, and
- “Are there any impediments or blockers?”
- At the end of the stand-up, team members can stay behind to discuss specific impediments and technical challenges that may require further collaboration and brainstorming.
Sprint Review
- This meeting is held at the end of each sprint to review and demonstrate the completed work to stakeholders.
- The Development Team presents the increment, gathers feedback, and discusses potential adaptations or changes.
- During these meetings stakeholders may be required to agree on their satisfaction with what has been completed, and whether it meets their definition of “done”.
Sprint Retrospective
- The retrospective is a meeting consisting of the Scrum Team held directly after the Sprint Review to reflect on the previous sprint and identify opportunities for improvement.
- The scrum team discusses what went well, what didn’t, and what actions can be taken to further enhance their processes and productivity in future sprints.
- The most critical aspect of a Sprint Retrospective is its emphasis on continuous improvement. The team aims to learn from their experiences in the previous sprint and make adjustments that lead to enhanced productivity, better quality, and more effective collaboration.
Definition of Done (DoD)
- DoD is where the team agrees on a shared understanding of what it means for a backlog item or increment to be considered complete and potentially shippable.
- This helps maintain quality and ensures that all work meets the agreed-upon criteria.
Scrum Framework Overview: Conclusion
Scrum offers a flexible yet structured framework for product teams to deliver value quickly and continuously. By adopting the roles, artifacts, and events of Scrum, product managers can empower their development teams to be more productive, collaborative, and adaptable.
In summary, Scrum works by:
- Dividing projects into short, manageable sprints to focus efforts and incrementally deliver working products
- Having a Product Owner represent the customer and prioritize the work in the product backlog
- Utilizing a Scrum Master to guide the team, enforce Scrum rules, and remove impediments
- Conducting sprint planning, daily standups, reviews, and retrospectives to inspect and adapt
- Creating a potentially shippable product increment at the end of each sprint
While Scrum may seem overwhelming at first, starting small and focusing on a single sprint at a time can help teams quickly grasp its concepts. As teams become more mature in their Scrum adoption, tools like release planning and higher levels of automation can maximize efficiency.
By embracing transparency, inspection, and adaptation, Scrum teams can build products that delight customers and offer significant competitive advantage. Its lightweight framework scales well from early-stage startups to large enterprises.
If you’re ready to accelerate your team’s productivity and ship value faster, adopting Scrum principles and practices is an excellent way to begin your agile journey.