Once you have understood the core concepts of Agile it is time for you to implement it. For this purpose, let us look at Scrum, a popular Agile framework.

Why is a methodology required?

Assume this scenario:

You have acquired knowledge about Agile values and principles.

With just this knowledge, if you have to start working on a product what would be your plan on the first day.

It will be very difficult to plan and start work with just the values and principles. Hence you need a methodology.

• A methodology is a process that is developed and fine-tuned to work in various situations.
• Methodologies give us a process and a set of working rules so that everyone knows what to do and how to do it.
• They also give us a common language which helps us to communicate with our teammates efficiently.

What is Scrum?

It is a popular methodology that is based on the Agile values and principles.

It is relatively simple without complex topics or subprocesses.

You can think of it as having a few mandates and a handful of areas like:

• Roles
• Practices
• Artifacts
• Meetings
• Etc

Scrum Roles:

Team:

• They build the product.
• E.g. Architects, testers, developers, UI designers, Business Analysts, etc

Product Owner (PO)

• They represent the business/customer.
• They represent all the various stakeholders of the project.
• They develop the vision, features, and other components of the project.
• They are responsible for creating and managing a prioritized wish list of features and requirements.
• Sometimes the BA is the PO.
• Sometimes the BA guides/assists the PO.

ScrumMaster:

• They facilitate team activities.
• Their profile may look similar to a project manager’s profile but it is not an accurate description.
• They do keep the project moving forward and do the necessary communications, however their main focus is to solve problems and overcome obstacles that obstruct the team’s working.
• Often, BAs don’t work as ScrumMasters.

Scrum Practices

Sprints:

• Work is done in an iteration of 1-4 weeks called sprints.
• At the end of each sprint, a working product is delivered to the customer.
• During the sprint
  • The ScrumMaster coordinates, communicates, and solves problems.
  • The Product Owner answers questions, elaborates features & requirements, and maintains an always up-to-date product backlog.

Product Backlog:

• This is the prioritized wishlist of product features and requirements maintained by the PO.

Work allotment:

• Agile teams are self-organizing and in that they themselves choose the highest-priority work they will do.

Testing:

• The requirements are always tested as soon as they are completed and not at any later date.
• Only when a test is passed a work is considered complete.

Shippable Product:

• Only completed and shippable product is delivered in each sprint.
• You may decide not to give the product to the customer or end-user but you should be able to that if the need arises.

Demo:

• At the end of the sprint, you give a demo of the working product to the PO.

Sprint Retrospective:

• This is a type of scrum meeting in which you figure out what you will do differently next time.

Scrum Artifacts

Artifact is not an Agile term.

It is something you create as a byproduct of creating a product.

User Stories:

• It is technically a requirement.
• However, it is not a requirement in the conventional sense.
• It is a statement that states what and why of a user’s need. There is no comprehensive requirement documentation. A user-story is a reminder to have a conversation.

Product Backlog:

• It is a list of product features and requirements i.e. user-stories.
• The list is ordered starting with the high-priority stories on top.
• It is created and maintained by the Product Owner.

Sprint Backlog:

• It is exactly like the Product Backlog.
• It contains the user stories for a particular sprint.
• It is created by the Team.

Scrum Meetings:

Sprint Planning:

• It takes place at the beginning of each sprint.
• In this meeting you decide on what work you will commit to for this sprint i.e. What work will you do in this sprint?
• The team selects the user-stories from Product Backlog into the Sprint Backlog.
• If the user-stories have problems like if it is too big or unclear then it is addressed in this meeting.

Daily Scrum:

• It happens each day.
• It is usually 15 minutes long.
• In this meeting each team member answers 3 questions:
  • What did I do yesterday?
  • What I plan to do today?
  • Are they any impediments?
• The goal is not to solve any problem but to bring the team up to speed.

Sprint Review:

• It takes place at the end of each sprint.
• The entire team is present along with any interested management and customers.
• The team gives a demo of the product with the Product Owner i.e. Here is what we built in this sprint?
• The team also verifies the product meets the committed standards.

Sprint Retrospective:

• In this meeting, we review what we did in the past, and what will we do differently next time?

Important Points:

• At the end of each sprint, a new working version of the product can be released to the customers or end-users.
• The team members choose what work they will do themselves i.e. teams are responsible for assigning tasks to themselves i.e. they are self-organizing.
• The product features are tested as soon as the development is complete. In each sprint, to minimize risk at the sprint level, testing is performed as soon as the new feature is ready to test.
• By thinking of user stories as a reminder to have a conversation about the requirement, we avoid the urge to over-document product requirements.
• Any new increment of the product must be
  • (A) tested to be of high quality and
  • (B) releasable to customers.
• It doesn’t necessarily have to be released to customers at the end of the sprint, but it must be releasable.