📑2020 Scrum Guide Summary

General Guidelines

PSM stands for Professional Scrum Master. For you to become a Professional Scrum Master, you must master all the competencies laid out in the Professional Scrum Competencies guide. These focus areas are:

1. Understanding and Applying Scrum Framework

   1. Empiricism

   2. Scrum Values

   3. Scrum Teams

   4. Artifacts

   5. Done

2. Developing People and Teams

   1. Self-Managing Teams

   2. Facilitation

   3. Coaching and Mentoring

3. Managing Products with Agility

   1. Forecasting and Release Planning

   2. Product Value

   3. Product Backlog Management

   4. Stakeholders and Customers

Definition of Scrum

• Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value

• Value generated through adaptive solutions for complex problems

• Scrum Master ideal cycle

  • Product Owner orders work for complex problem into Product Backlog

  • Scrum Team turns work into an increment of value during a Sprint

  • Scrum Team and stakeholders inspect the results and adjust for next Sprint

• Scrum guidelines

  • Guide relationships and interactions

  • Wraps around or obsoletes existing practices

  • Makes visible relative efficacy of management, the environment and work techniques so improvements can be made

Scrum Theory

Leans on two values. Empiricism, that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is observed. And Lean thinking, which reduces waste and focuses on essentials. It is an Iterative, incremental approach to optimize predictability, control risk.

Pillars of Scrum Theory

Transparency

• Process and work visible to performers as well as receivers

• Decisions based on perceived state of three formal Artifacts

• Low transparency Artifacts lead to decisions that diminish value and increase risk

• Enables inspection. Inspection without transparency is misleading and wasteful

Inspection

• Inspect Scrum artifacts and progress toward goals frequently and diligently

• Five Events provide a structure

• Enables adaptation. Adaptation without inspection is pointless

Adaptation

• Adjust if any aspects of a process deviate outside limits or if resulting product is unacceptable

• Time is key - adjustments must be made as soon as possible

• Difficult when people are not empowered or self-managing

• Scrum Team expected to adapt after new insight from Inspection

Scrum Values

• Commitment: Scrum Team focused on achieving goals and supporting each other

• Focus: Primary goal is to work on Sprint to make progress

• Openness: Scrum Team and stakeholders are open about work and challenges

• Respect: Respect for each other and respected by each other

• Courage: Courage to do right thing, work on tough problems

Scrum Team

Description of Teams

• Fundamental unit of Scrum is a small unit - a Scrum Team

• Three roles by accountability - Developer, Product Owner, Scrum Master

• Team usually consists of one Scrum Master, one Product Owner and developers

• No sub-teams or hierarchies within a scrum team.

• Cohesive unit of professionals focused on Product Goal.

• Cross-functional: People with different expertise working on a common goal

• Self-managing: Manage internally who does what, when, how

• Small enough to remain nimble, large enough to complete significant work. Typically 10 or fewer

• Large teams can reorganize into Cohesive Scrum Teams with same Product Goal, Product Backlog and Owner

• Responsible for all activities from stakeholder collaboration, verification, maintenance, operation, experimentation, research and development, and anything else

Developer

People committed to creating any aspect of a usable Increment each Sprint. Specific skills include:

• Creating Sprint Backlog, which is the plan for the sprint or the list of items that they need to complete this Sprint

• Instilling quality by adhering to Done standards/definition set by them

• Adapting plan each day towards Sprint Goal

• Accountability towards each other

Product Owner

Accountable for maximizing value of product resulting from work. Also responsible for effective Product Backlog management. Skills include:

• Developing and communicating Product Goal

• Creating and communicating Product Backlog items

• Ordering Product Backlog items

• Ensuring that Product Backlog is transparent, visible and understood

Scrum Master

Accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the guide. Help everyone understand Scrum theory and practice. Accountable for team's effectiveness. Skills include:

• Coaching members in self-management and cross-functionality

• Helping team to focus on creating high-value Increments that meet Done definition

• Removing impediments to Scrum progress

• Ensuring that all Scrum events take place and are positive, productive and within timebox

Scrum Master may also serve as Product Owner:

• Finding techniques for effective Product Goal definition and Product Backlog management

• Helping team understand need for concise and clear Product Backlog items

• Helping establish empirical product planning

• Facilitating stakeholder collaboration

Scrum Master leads in several ways:

• Leading, training and coaching organization in Scrum adoption

• Planning and advising Scrum implementations within organization

• Helping employees and stakeholders understand and enact empirical approach for complex work

• Removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum team

Scrum Events

• Sprint represents container for all other events

• Event represents opportunity to inspect and adapt Artifacts

• Events designed to enable transparency

• Used to create regularity and reduce need for non-Scrum meetings

The Sprint

• Heartbeat, where ideas are turned into value

• Fixed length events of one month or less to create consistency

• Consecutive in nature

• All work necessary to achieve Product Goal happens within sprints

• Enable predictability by ensuring inspection and adaptation of progress toward a Product Goal

• Long sprint horizon may result in Sprint Goal becoming invalid, increase in complexity or risk

• Shorter sprints employed to generate more learning cycles and limit risk of cost and effort

• While practices such as burn-down, burn-up, cumulative flows exist, they are not replacements for empiricism

• Can be cancelled if Sprint Goal becomes obsolete

Sprint Planning

• Initiates Scrum by laying out work to be performed for the Sprint

• Collaborative work of Scrum Team

• Product Owner ensure attendees are prepared to discuss Product Backlog items and mapping to Product Goal

• Topic One: Why is this Sprint Valuable

  • Proposal of how product could increase value and utility

  • Define Sprint Goal that communicates why Sprint is valuable to stakeholders

• Topic Two: What can be done this Sprint

  • Select items from Product Backlog to include in this sprint

  • Items may be refined to increase understanding

  • Number of items depends on Sprint Team's performance, capacity and definition of Done

• Topic Three: How will Chosen Work Get Done

  • Decomposing Product Backlog items to smaller work items of one day or less

  • Discretion of developers

  • Plan work necessary to create an Increment that meets definition of Done

• Sprint Backlog = Sprint Goal + Product Backlog Items + Plan for Delivery

• Sprint Planning is timeboxed to a maximum of eight hours for a one-month Sprint

Daily Scrum

• Inspect progress toward Sprint Goal and adapt Sprint Backlog as needed

• 15-minute event for developers (and other active workers on Sprint Backlog)

• Developers can select structure and techniques

• Should focus on actionable plan for next day of work - creating focus and improving self-management

• Daily Scrums improve communication, identify impediments, promote quick decision-making and eliminate need for other meetings

Sprint Review

• Inspect outcome of Sprint and determine future adaptations

• Scrum Team presents results of work to key stakeholders

• Progress towards larger Product Goal discussed

• Stakeholders review and collaborate on what to do next

• Product Backlog may be changed to meet new opportunities

• Second to last event of a Sprint

• Timeboxed to a maximum of four hours for a one-month Sprint

Sprint Retrospective

• Plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness

• Inspect Last Sprint with regards to individuals, interactions, processes, tools and definition of Done

• Discuss what went well, problems, solutions

• Identify changes to improve effectiveness, often adding them to next Sprint

• Concludes the Sprint

• Timeboxed to maximum of three hours for a one-month Sprint

Scrum Artifacts

• Artifacts represent work, or value

• Designed to maximize transparency of key information

• Commitment to ensure it provides information that enhances transparency and focus

• For Product Backlog, it is the Product Goal

• For Sprint Backlog, it is the Sprint Goal

• For Increment, it is the definition of Done

Product Backlog

• Emergent, ordered list of what is needed to improve product

• Single source of work undertaken by Scrum Team

• Two cases:

  • Product Backlog items can be Done within one Sprint: Ready for selection in Sprint Planning

  • Product Backlog items cannot be Done within one Sprint: Undertake Product Backlog Refinement to break down into smaller more precise items (ongoing activity)

Product Goal

• Describes future state of product that may serve as target for Scrum Team

• Product Backlog is built around the Product Goal and "what" will fulfil the Product Goal

• "Product is a vehicle to deliver value. It has clear boundary, known stakeholders and well-defined users or customers. It could e a service, a physical product or something more abstract."

• Long-term objective for Scrum Team

Sprint Backlog

• Composed of Sprint Goal (why), set of Backlog items (what) and actionable plan for delivering items (how)

• Made by developers

• Highly visible, real-time picture of work that Developers plan to accomplish during a sprint in order to achieve Sprint Goal

Sprint Goal

• Single objective for sprint

• Flexible in terms of exact work to achieve it

• Creates coherence and focus

• Created during Sprint Planning and added to Sprint Backlog

• If work turns out to be different, Developers negotiate with Product Owner to change scope of Sprint Backlog without adjusting Sprint Goal

Increment

• Concrete stepping stone towards Product Goal

• Additive to prior increments and thoroughly verified

• Must be usable to provide value

• Sprints consist of multiple increments, sum of which is presented at Sprint Review (empiricism)

• Work cannot be Increment if it does not meet definition of Done

Definition of Done

• Formal description of state of Increment when it meets all quality measures required for the product

• When Product Backlog item meets Done, it is an Increment

• Developers required to conform to a definition of Done