A whole Scrum Sprint Explanation in Agile Software Development

Many people consider switching to Agile. Good initiative! A good start will be to get a good understanding of scrum sprints. So here's a scrum sprint explanation that should get you started out.

What is scrum? The feedback-driven approach

Scrum strategy is an iterative and  pregressive framework of software agile development which was created to help teams as it pertains to managing the development process.

Although it is mainly used in the sprint program industry, it may also be employed in many other industries. What is great about agile scrum is it emphasises on cooperation, working software and overall flexibility to adapting to change.

Transparency, inspection, and version are keywords when you discuss agile scrum. Process, workflow and progress are indeed always visible! Within fact, teams have regular meetings (physical or online) with all the members and communication is highly encouraged, enabling the team to self-organise.

Talking about the team, it usually is constructed by around 7 people, every one having a different role. The idea is that the team works in a nutshell activities that are called "sprints" where inspection & reviews are extremely important. The particular focus is mainly on consistently enhancing processes and product itself.

Main roles of the scrum team

Merchandise owner

The product operator represents the customer, he or she always has to have a vision of what needs to be built. Among his main role is to express it and make it clear to the scrum team. He or she is the one who owns the product backlog and that prioritizes the orders of the products, but this doesn't mean that dr. murphy is the one to choose how much and how it will be done during the sprint.

Scrum learn

The Scrum Master helps the item Owner and the team understand their common objectives and assists them when it comes to the planing about how to achieve these goals. He is an advisor and a coach for both celebrations and has to ensure that the team will reach its sprint goals. so that as the team is self organised, the scrum master must stay fairly neutral and doesn't really have an authority what so ever.

Scrum team members

The team is self organised and its members are in charge of completing the user stories that were set, always ensuring to add value to the product. One of their tasks is to give estimates for every single sprint and they decide how the job will be done.

Agile scrum sprint description

First thing you need to know is that the scrum sprint is a work period that is regular and repeatable where we complete the "work" that we determined in the starting of the process, so that it is ready to be evaluated. Although a scrum sprint is usually of 30 days, we prefer doing these iterations in two-weeks. During each one of our sprints, we create a product that is shippable. It can be very basic, and it is not an issue.

In fact, the idea is to deliver something that works, because let's be honest, in 2 weeks times, you can't put all the functionalities. The idea is to get started on with little, but having the most essential ones. In a way, this also gives a good view of the progress to the customer. Unless the project is very short & basic, the last product will be done in more than one run. So each and every time we begin a new sprint, we are working and doing iterations on the last one which was done.

Sprint planning conference

All sprints should start with a conference where the team covers and plans/organises the sprint. They first start by setting goals and identifying what is going to be the gifts for the sprint. Typically the team identifies the user reports that will be shifted from the Product Backlog (a cumulative set of giveaways for the product) into the sprint backlog (a to do list for the sprint). Basically, what will be achieved and how will it be done? Take into account that work shouldn't be added to the short once it has began. Also, if something was not done by the conclusion of the sprint, we just need to move it to the backlog and prioritize it.

Every day scrum meeting

The day depends on the daily scrum meeting. A brief gathering where the team members do a checkup helping solve problems. They talk and see how everything is proceeding, what has been done, what will be done during that day and if there are any problems experienced. It is also called the standup.

Scrum sprint review

The scrum sprint review marks the "public" end of the sprint. Every stakeholder should be present during the conference and the team get the opportunity to speak about the user stories which could not be completed (if there are any) and they then can show the work done. Through the other side, the product operator can see the advancements done to the product.

Throughout this phase, feedback is very important. And bear in mind, this is not a gathering where decisions are taken, that happens during the Sprint planning meeting.

Agile retrospective

As I mentioned earlier, the scrum sprint review is the "public" end of the sprint. But for the team, at the end of each sprint, the retrospective meeting is exactly what marks their end. They has a meeting to share what has worked and what hasn't worked. How can processes be improved? The particular idea is to find 1-2 new strategic becomes apply to the next sprint.

Hopefully with this article you got an improved understanding of how scrum sprint works and how it is a suggestions oriented approach. I really think that this way of working helps avoid huge problems and adapts much more to the user's needs. We also made the decision to apply this way of working to more of our departments and also to boost the comfort, we all found it extremely efficient!