Scrum Tutorial

Scrum is a successful and solid Agile framework revolutionizing the face of project management and software development. Professionals are becoming more Agile with the help of Scrum. It is one of the most sought-after skills today, and LinkedIn calls ScrumMaster one of the promising jobs of 2021.

This Scrum tutorial will help you understand why Scrum is great and how you can get started with Scrum by covering all the core concepts like product backlog, team roles, sprints, burn-down charts, and more.

Scrum Tutorial

Scrum Tutorial - Table of Content

What is Scrum? Scrum Process Framework Scrum values Scrum Team How does Scrum work? Scrum benefits Scrum tools Scrum Certifications Career Path for Scrum master

What is Scrum?

A scrum is a lightweight framework used for effective product development. It is not a technique, method, or process; rather, it's a framework within which you can employ various processes and techniques. Scrum consists of teams and associated roles, artifacts, events, and rules. etc., and each component serves a specific purpose in the framework.

The product built-in the Scrum is prepared in a series of fixed-length iterations called sprints. A sprint is a short, time-boxed iteration that is of one to six weeks in duration that helps the scrum teamwork to convert a subset of user stories in the product backlog into shippable product functionalities.

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Scrum Process Framework

The below image outlines Scrum in Action by taking us from planning through software delivery.  

In Scrum, prescribed events create regularity, and all the events are time-boxed so that each event has its maximum duration. In particular, there are four events in the scrum process, such as sprint planning, daily Scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective. In the later part of the tutorial, you'll get a clear idea about these events.

What is so special about Scrum Project Management?

Scrum solves complex problems in work by making them transparent so that everyone can inspect and adjust based on the current conditions, rather than predicted conditions. Transparency of common standards and terms is needed to ensure what is being delivered.

Regular inspections ensure project progress and detect variances early. The basic Scrum events for inspection and adaptation are Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, and Daily Scrum. 

Related Article: Agile Project Management With Scrum

Scrum Values

The five values that are the foundation for Scrum team processes are:

• Courage – Courage is critical to an agile team's success. Everyone in the team should have the courage to do the right thing and work on complex problems to succeed.
• Focus – Everyone in the team will focus on the work of the sprint and Scrum Team goals
• Commitment – The Scrum value of commitment is essential for building an agile culture. ScrumMasters strengthen a team's commitment when they facilitate sprint planning, deflect excessive pressure from product owners, and protect teams from mid-sprint changes.
• Respect – Scrum Team members demonstrate respect to one another, as it helps the team to listen to each other issues during daily scrums. 
• Openness – The Scrum Team and its stakeholders agree to be open to consistently seek out new ideas and opportunities for work.

Scrum Team

The Scrum Team consists of mainly three roles, namely a Product Owner, Scrum Master, and the Development Team.

• Product Owner

The Product Owner is vital in Scrum development. Part of the product owner's responsibilities includes a vision of what customers want to build and conveying that vision to the scrum team. They directly interact with the customer, development team, and other central stakeholders and are responsible for decision-making.

• Scrum Master

The Scrum Master role is responsible to promote and support Scrum. They communicate all best scrum practices to the team, ensure they are followed, and facilitate the scrum activities. (sprint reviews, daily meetings, retrospectives)

• Development Team

The Development Team(Scrum Team) determines how to accomplish the tasks set forth by the product owner. They are self-organizing and cross-functional to create a product increment.

Related Article: Agile Vs Scrum

How does Scrum Work?

Let's understand the step-by-step process of how Scrum works with Jira software.

Step1: Create a Scrum project

Once the scrum project is created, you will land on the product backlog. The list of tasks that needs to be done in the project is called a product backlog. For any changes to be done on the product, the backlog is the single source through which requirements are added.

Throughout the whole development process, new tasks can be added to the product backlog. The Product Owner is liable for the Product Backlog, to its availability, content, and order.

Step2: Create user stories or tasks in the backlog

User stories describe the work items from the user's perspective in a non-technical language. Once the user stories are created, we can prioritize them in the backlog.

Related Article: Frequently Asked Scrum Interview Questions

Step3: Create a Sprint

In Scrum, the team forecast to complete a set of user stories in a fixed time duration called a sprint. The optimal time mostly we set for a sprint is for two weeks.

The product owner sets the sprint goal. A sprint is also made up of individual tasks; the most complex can be further divided into smaller tasks, which usually can be performed in a few hours by any team member. 

To create a Sprint, go to the backlog of your Scrum project, there you can find the Create sprint button at the top of your backlog. Click on it, and you will be moved to the screen to create a new Sprint. Note, more than one sprint can be created at the same time.

Step4: Hold the Sprint Planning Meeting

The first meeting to start the sprint is called a Sprint planning meeting. The product owner, scrum master, and the entire team members attend it to discuss the sprint goal and stories in the prioritized product backlog.

Step5: Start the Sprint in Jira

Once the issues are added to the sprint and the team is ready to work, you'll need to start the sprint. Once you start your sprint, you will be taken to the Active sprints tab in the project.

Step6: Hold the Daily Standup Meetings

Daily standup meetings inspect the progress of the Sprint goal and how progress is trending toward work completion in the sprint backlog. Daily scrum meetings are held every day of a sprint at the same time and location to reduce complexity. 

The primary purpose of these meetings is to enhance team communication and collaboration, help all the team members, share their inputs, discover what needs improvement and stay updated.

Related Article: What is Scrum Methodology

Step7: View the Burndown Chart

A graphical representation of how quickly the team is working through customers' user stories is called the Burndown chart. It estimates the actual and estimated amount of work to be done in a sprint.

Step8: Hold the Sprint Review Meeting

Sprint reviews take place at the end of the sprint and are specially designed for gathering actionable feedback on what the team has completed. Also, referred to as demos, which show the overall work to the team and inspect the roadmap for the product.

Step9: Hold the Sprint Retrospective Meeting

Sprint retrospectives are used to inspect and improvements to be performed in the next sprint. Sprint retrospectives occur before the next sprint planning and after the Sprint review.

Step10: Complete the Sprint in Jira

At the end of the sprint, click on the complete sprint.

Scrum Benefits

The key benefits of using Scrum are:

• Quicker release 
• Increased project control
• Greater ability to incorporate changes at any time
• Improved progress visibility and control
• Higher productivity
• Lower costs
• Higher customer satisfaction

Related Article: Scrum Master Roles and Responsibilities

Scrum Tools

Let’s discuss some of the most popular Scrum tools that increase team productivity:

• Jira - Jira is a go-to Scrum tool for software development. It is built for every member of your team to plan, track, and release great software. It supports features like product backlog, Sprint and Burndown charts, integrations, analytics, and more.
• Targetprocess - Target is one of the most widely adopted Scrum tools, which provides a high degree of customization, from views to graphical reports, custom cards, and report templates. The most useful thing about this tool is it supports the SAFe methodology. It allows a powerful set of integrations, portfolio reports, sprint management, and more.
• nTask - nTask comes with a powerful meeting management solution that allows the execution of daily scrum meetings effectively. nTask helps in the effective implementation of Scrum by Project portfolio, task management, daily scrum management, progress reporting, risk management, and more.
• Axosoft -  Axosoft is primarily a project management tool that provides a set of features that will make Scrum implementation easy for you. It has a growing list of integrations and also one feature that makes this tool special is the release planner, which allows you to view the sprint, team, and team member levels.
• Yodiz - Yodiz is one of the most comprehensive Scrum tools you can opt for. It comes with a rich feature fitting perfectly for your team's needs. It allows you to manage sprints, backlogs, and releases without getting into the hassle of third-party add-ons.
• Asana - This project management software comes with solid features that make your scrum implementation easy. It supports everything you need to stay in sync, hit deadlines, and reach your goals.

Scrum Certifications

The following are the certifications offered for Scrum:

• Professional Scrum Master
• Professional Scrum Product Owner
• Professional Scrum Developer
• Scaled Professional Scrum
• Professional Scrum with Kanban
• Professional Scrum with User Experience
• Professional Scrum Master: 

This is a basic certification to become a Professional Scrum Master. This certification includes three levels of assessments based on fundamental, advanced, and distinguished levels of Scrum mastery. Those who pass all three levels of PSM assessments will receive the corresponding industry-recognized certification.

Professional Scrum Product Owner:

This is a basic certification to become a Professional Scrum Product Owner. It validates and certifies your knowledge based on three levels of assessments (fundamental, advanced, and distinguished).

Professional Scrum Developer:

This is a basic certification to become a Scrum Developer. It tests your knowledge of how to build complex software products using Scrum.

Scaled Professional Scrum:

This certification is for those professionals who want to demonstrate their knowledge of scaling Scrum and the Nexus framework.

Professional Scrum with Kanban:

This certification is available to anyone who wishes to validate their knowledge of how Scrum Teams can use Scrum with Kanban's ability for supporting value creation and delivery. 

Professional Scrum with User Experience:

This certification demonstrates your knowledge of integrating modern UX practices into Scrum and working effectively within Scrum teams.

[ Also Check out the Principles of Scrum ]

Career Path for Scrum Master

The scrum master career path allows one to build a career in various fields:

• Agile Coach
• Product Owner
• Mentor
• Manager
• Management Roles.

1. Agile coach - Facilitates the implementation of Agile and Scrum. The agile coach guides the team members toward agile adoption.
2. Product Owner - If you want to build something, then the product owner is a perfect choice.
3. Mentor - Shares knowledge of becoming a Scrum master and leads the team to work effectively.
4. Manager - The candidate should possess excellent working knowledge of Scrum to become a manager. 
5. Management roles - A project managerial role is different from ScrumMasters. Candidates should possess prior experience to handle teams.

With this, we have come to the end of this Scrum Tutorial. We hope all the topics shared in this article are clear and help you get started with Scrum.