An Overview of Scrum for Agile Software Development

As a brief introduction, Scrum is an agile process most commonly used for product development, especially software development. Scrum is, however, a general-purpose project management framework that is applicable to any project with aggressive deadlines with complex requirements and a degree of uniqueness. In Scrum, projects progress via a series of iterations called sprints. Each sprint is typically 2-4 weeks long.

• Scrum has three roles product owner, Scrum Master and The Team Members.
• Scrum uses three artefacts Product backlog, Sprint Backlogs and Burn down Chart to guide the team during the sprint.
• The product owner takes care of the Product Backlogs. The Backlog is the list of the every desirable outcome user expect from the product. This is the centrally TO DO LIST of GOAL.
• Scrum defines three ceremonies Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum and Sprint Review & Retrospective.
• The Scrum Master is the facility there for the team. He helps the team members to follow the ceremonies and effectively use the artefacts. 

SCRUM OVERVIEW - INTRODUCTION TO SCRUM TERMS:

An introduction to Scrum would not be complete without giving details on all the Scrum terms that you will come across. This section of our Scrum overview lists all these terms and gives you some brief details with a link to more detailed information.

A typical scrum team has between five and nine people, but Scrum projects can easily scale into the hundreds. Scrum can easily be used by one-person teams and often is. The team does not include any of the traditional software engineering roles such as programmer, designer, tester, or architect. Everyone on the project works together to complete the set of work they have collectively committed to complete within a sprint. Scrum teams develop a deep form of camaraderie and a feeling that “we’re all in this together.”

The product owner is the project’s key stakeholder and represents users, customers and others in the process. The product owner is often someone from product management or marketing, a key stakeholder or a key user.

The ScrumMaster is responsible for making sure the team is as productive as possible. The ScrumMaster does this by helping the team use the Scrum process, by removing impediments (Obstacles) to progress, by protecting the team from outside, and so on.

The product backlog is a prioritized features list containing every desired feature or change to the product. At the start of each sprint, a sprint planning meeting is held during which the product owner presents the top items on the product backlog to the team, and the Scrum team selects the work they can complete during the coming sprint. That work is then moved from the product backlog to a sprint backlog, which is the list of tasks needed to complete the product backlog items the team has committed to complete in the sprint.

Each day during the sprint, a brief meeting called the daily scrum is conducted. This meeting helps set the context for each day’s work and helps the team stay on track. All team members are required to attend the daily scrum.

At the end of each sprint, the team demonstrates the completed functionality at a sprint review meeting, during which, the team shows what they accomplished during the sprint. Typically, this takes the form of a demonstration of the new features, but in an informal way; for example, PowerPoint slides are not allowed. The meeting must not become a task in itself nor a distraction from the process.

Also at the end of each sprint, the team conducts a sprint retrospective, which is a meeting during which the team (including its ScrumMaster and product owner) reflect on how well Scrum is working for them and what changes they may wish to make for it to work even better.

Note: The term “backlog” can get confusing because it’s used for two different things. To clarify: the product backlog is a list of desired features for the product. The sprint backlog is a list of tasks to be completed in a sprint.