Scrum is a framework for the purpose of project management that facilitates teamwork. The Scrum framework redefines the values and moves forward with interactive progress towards achieving the goal. The real question is why scrum and why not waterfall? The waterfall is a model that breaks down the project-related activities into sequential phases, whereas one phase is dependent upon the other phase. In simple words, it delivers phases and scrum provides features.
Waterfall phases are connected and due to the sequential process, hence it is not valuable until the project reaches its end. Scrum works as a solution to such a problem, by providing new features right after a few weeks, instead of focusing on big releases.
Scrum provides assistance in breaking down the complex activities into smaller pieces, large enterprises into smaller teams, and large projects into sprints. The structure of the scrum framework is based upon three pillars, transparency, inspection, and adaptation. All three pillars hold equal significance.
The actual purpose of the scrum guide
The scrum was developed in the early 1990s. The first version of the scrum guide was introduced in 2010, in order to help people all around the world. The purpose of the scrum guide was to make it easy for people to understand scrum. Since then, the guide evolved with functional updates with the most recent version being released in 2020. The latest Scrum guide changes summary refers to the biggest change in the section of “Scrum Artifacts”.
So why scrum guide is important and what does it really contain?
The scrum guide puts the light on the definition of a scrum. It is important to understand that each element of the framework holds a specific purpose that holds importance in the final overall value. Scrum comes with its full benefits when it is expected the way it is, without bringing any change in the core design, eliminating elements, or not following the rules and terms of the scrum.
The use of scrum is escalating as the complexity is rising. It is applicable in several domains dealing with complex work. Scrum involvement refers to the use of analysts, scientists, developers, researchers, and spreads, the rest is done by specialists. The world “developers used in scrum is to simplify it, not to exclude.
Scrum values
The fundamentals of scrum are based on a team of people, which consists of developers, scrum master, and product owner. There is no presence of a hierarchy of small sub-teams. It is such an organized unit, where all professionals are diverted towards focusing on one aim at a time and that is the product goal.
Scrum teams are always cross-functional, as all the required expertise and skills are found in the members of the team. they all are self-organized means that decisions like what, who, when, and how are decided internally.
The scrum responsibilities are widespread overall activities such as research and development, operation, maintenance, verification, stakeholder collaboration, and experimentation. They are all structured and organized in a way that successfully manages their own work. It is the responsibility of the scrum team to create a valuable and useful increment every sprint.
The sprint
Sprint is the backbone or according to some professionals “heart” of a scrum, where the idea is converted to value. Sprints are considered fixed-length events less than a month or a complete month to develop consistency. The next sprint starts right after the completion of the previous sprint. All the elements required to achieve the product goal such as sprint review, daily scrums take place within scrum.
Throughout the sprint, changes are discouraged as they might endanger the Sprint Goal. the quality remains consistent, the product backlog is refined accordingly. There are multiple to forecast the progress like cumulative flows. Only the product owner is authorized to cancel the sprint if sprint results come to obsoletion.
Sprint planning
Sprint planning is like a workstation that lay out the work that is supposed to be performed for the sprint. The whole scrum team is behind the creation of a resulting plan. Sprint planning considers the following topics. Topic one relates to “why is the sprint valuable?” the second topic refers to “what can be done with a sprint?” and “how will the chosen work get done?