Scrum as a Framework: Full speed in short time and together!

 

As a framework, Scrum is established in three pillars: transparency, inspection and adaptation. According to “The 2020 Scrum Guide”, transparency means that “The emergent process and work must be visible to those performing the work as well as those receiving the work” and this is possible through three artifacts (which represent work or value and each one “contains a commitment to ensure it provides information that enhances transparency and focus against which progress can be measured”): Product Backlog (the commitment is “the Product Goal”), Sprint Backlog (the commitment is “the Sprint Goal”) and Increment (the commitment is “the Definition of Done”).  

Related with transparency is inspection: “Transparency enables inspection. Inspection without transparency is misleading and wasteful”. Inspection of the artifacts and of “the progress toward agreed goals” through five events:

• Sprint,
• Sprint Planning (it “initiates the Sprint by laying out the work to be performed for the Sprint” and addresses three topics, why is this Sprint valuable?, what can be Done this Sprint?, and how will the chosen work get done?),
• Daily Scrum (“to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work”; it is “a 15-minute event for the Developers of the Scrum Team”),
• Sprint Review (“to inspect the outcome of the Sprint and determine future adaptations. The Scrum team presents the results of their work to key stakeholders and progress toward the Product Goal is discussed”; it is “the second to last event of the Sprint and is timeboxed to a maximum of four hours for a one-month Sprint”, but it could be shorter for shorter Sprints),
• and Sprint Retrospective (“to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness”. In this event the team discusses what problems they faced and how those problems were (or not) solved. It “concludes the Sprint and it “is timeboxed to a maximum of three hours for a one-month Sprint”.)

As a result, “Inspection enables adaptation” and adaptation is the third Scrum pillar, destinated “to provoke change”.

Agile has four values (individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, responding to change), as we have seen, Scrum has five values:

• Commitment: to achieve the goals and support each other to bring value to the customer
• Focus: “on the work of the Sprint to make progress toward these goals”
• Openness: “about the work and the challenges”
• Respect: everyone in the Scrum team is capable, independent and “respected by the people with whom they work”
• Courage: “to do the right thing, to work on tough problems”

Self-managing, cross-functional and “focused on one objective at a time, the Product Goal”, the Scrum team has: one Scrum Master (servant leader, ensuring that Scrum is understood and used skillfully by the Scrum team), one Product Owner (responsible to talk to the stakeholders/users to understand their needs, product vision and then to come back to the team, helping to understand the product vision and giving some description of what needs to be developed from an end user’s perspective and with what work prioritization) the and Developers (“people in the Scrum Team that are committed to creating any aspect of a usable increment each Sprint”). Typically, the team should have “10 or fewer people” to communicate better and be more productive.

Finally, in what respects to the Scrum events, and as referred in “The 2020 Scrum Guide”, “the Sprint is a container for all other events”, which are formal opportunities to “inspect and adapt Scrum artifacts” and enable the transparency.  The Sprint is “the heartbeat of Scrum, where ideas are turned into value”.

Coming from sport, it means something like “run at full speed over a short distance”. In software development, it is like “a set period of time during which specific tasks must be completed” or, I would say that it could be understanded as synonym for full speed in short time and together, when the subject is software development. In one hand, Scrum is about working together in a team: learning, adapting, and improving to achieve success as soon as possible.  In the other hand, it means planning, developing, testing and reviewing of a working software that should be completed with this time box (1/4 weeks).