An Overview Of Scrum Methodology

Scrum framework

Scrum is a unique framework specially designed to build a versatile product.  The framework supports a dynamic design, which allows the features and functionalities linked with the product to be changed, along with the real time changes occurring in the ongoing market conditions. Generally, a scrum project is started when the stakeholders or the investors desire to develop a product for marketing and selling purposes.

Scrum roles

Scrum is basically a team process. There are three important roles in scrum:

·       The Product Owner

Responsible for the work to be done in the scrum project.

·       The Scrum Master

Plays the servant-leader role, ensures that scrum is properly implemented in the project, and acts as a facilitator.

·       The development team members

Undertakes the product development in the form of sprints and actually gives “birth” to the product.

Daily sprints

A sprint is the fundamental unit of developing the product in scrum methodology. Actually, the entire product is developed in short bursts of development activity known as “sprints”. Each sprint generally lasts for two weeks. It can, however, extend up to four weeks if required, but in practice it generally lasts for only two weeks. A fully functional, or a “shippable” product feature or functionality is delivered at the end of each sprint.

Scrum artifacts or objects

Scrum includes three important artifacts which facilitate the scrum process. They are:

·       The Product Backlog

It consists of the user stories, or the list of features and functionalities which actually define the entire product to be developed.

·       The Sprint Backlog

A certain portion, or a subset of the product backlog, is transferred to the sprint backlog for development purposes during the sprint.

·       The Product Increment

It constitutes the list of features and functionalities which have been developed successfully by the development team, and is ready for “shipping”.

Scrum meetings

Scrum also requires five team activities or meetings, which are:

·       Product Backlog Refinement

The meeting includes updating the product backlog items or the user stories with the latest updates and feedback availed from the stakeholders, and resetting the priority of the backlog items on the basis of their importance.

·       Sprint Planning

Scheduled just before a sprint is to be carried out, the meeting is used to plan which tasks should be taken up for development by the team, and to clear the doubts or issues concerning the development.

·       Daily Scrum

The meeting is held just before the sprint commences for the particular day. The purpose is to discuss three important questions associated with daily sprinting:

-        What was done yesterday?

-        What is to be done today?

-        Are there any difficulties?

·       Sprint Review

Once a sprint is carried out, the product owner compares the user stories developed by the team, whether they fulfill the acceptance criteria. The review functions as a “learning” activity, and the team uses the prior experience to avoid potential pitfalls from occurring in the future sprints.

·       Sprint Retrospective

Once the development is carried out in sprints, and the product owner accepts the tasks as “Done”, it is required to demonstrate the successfully completed user stories to the stakeholders and the end users. The retrospective also helps to obtain a feedback from the individuals who are actually going to use the product.

Source:- https://www.apsense.com/article/an-overview-of-scrum-methodology.html

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True Meaning of Scrum and Pitfalls To Avoid At All Costs

Scrum, having its roots in Agile, can be effectively employed for almost any type of project. However, scrum is most preferred for software development purposes. The scrum process is ideally suited for rapidly changing project environments. It is most useful, and its potential can be tapped in the best manner, when the user related requirements are changed frequently, or randomly, due to various reasons. The methodology makes it possible to incorporate the changes easily and effectively within its development cycle, and still generate positive outputs.      

The true essence and working of scrum

According to scrum framework, development occurs in short bursts of activity known as “sprints”. Each sprint can generally last from two to four weeks. Each sprint begins with a meeting, known as a “sprint meeting”, and typically concludes with clearly defined and set out development objectives. “Stand up” meetings are very brief, and occur daily before the commencement of the sprint for that particular day. The main objective of the meeting is to apprise everyone about how much development progress has been made since the previous day, and what objectives are to be achieved on the particular working day. The main purpose of scrum is to aid the team members in inspecting and adapting to the changes, and providing transparency with regards the working of the project. Another main advantage offered by scrum framework is to increase the involvement, and the interaction of the client with the team members. The client remains apprised about the most recent development status, which helps him or her to undertake informed decisions about what further development activities are required to complete the project in totality, and what features and functionalists need to be omitted, or which have become redundant during the development cycle.   

Pitfalls while implementing scrum

Scrum is a framework based upon an organized thought process developed specially to cater to changing development requirements, and the main issue with Agile and scrum is that the method is to be implemented, or its rules enforced in a proper manner. Many a times, when organizations are not properly trained in the implementation of the framework, there is a tendency to fall back upon old development methods, consciously or unconsciously, thus making scrum redundant. Traditional development methods such as Waterfall have been in existence since a long time, and people are more familiar with them. Project managers have practiced these methods for a long time, and they are more conversant with them. Scrum can be difficult to implement, and if the manager is not properly trained, he or she may substitute some of the scrum related processes with Waterfall methods. The objective is to provide a specific solution during the development cycle, and when the person fails to implement scrum in a particular development related process, he or she “patches” up scrum implementation process with a Waterfall technique. This should be avoided at all costs. Scrum should be implemented in totality for it to be effective.    

"Please visit http://www.quickscrum.com to download the Quickscrum tool"

An Overview Regarding Scrum Methodology

An introduction to Scrum methodology

For majority of the software developers, Agile methodology does not require any prior introduction. It is widely known that Agile is a comparatively new addition in the field of project management, and was primarily developed to overcome the drawbacks offered by traditional developmental methodologies such as the Waterfall method, which included a linear approach while executing projects. Typically, traditional methods support a top-to-bottom approach of segregating the entire project into main development activities, and tackling them one after another in a sequential method. The Scrum methodology offers a more flexible and dynamic approach of splitting up the entire project into individually executable project parts known as “Sprints”. Each sprint is processed or developed by many team members, who put in efforts to develop an entirely finished and shippable product at the end of the particular sprint. The main advantage of the Scrum methodology is that it increases the interaction between the “Product owner” and the team members. Increased client participation (or the Product Owner) leads to enhanced development experience, an advantage that is uniquely offered by Scrum and not other development methodologies. Another advantage offered by Scrum is the highly reduced turnaround time. Each sprint may typically last from one to four weeks, at the end of which a shippable product is delivered. The client is made aware about the development carried out at the end of the sprint by the team members. In many cases, the client can assume the role of the product owner and brief the scrum master regarding the development required. Typically, the sprints are numbered from zero, and proceed as “Sprint 1”, “Sprint 2”, etc. The client can determine the cost effectiveness of each sprint.Know more on http://blog.quickscrum.com/post/2014/01/23/An-Overview-Regarding-Scrum-Methodology.aspx 

The Origin And Key Principles Of Scrum

Origin of scrum

The terminology "Scrum" was initially introduced by Takeuchi and Nonaka in 1986, in a study paper published in the Harvard Business Review. The paper explained that projects should ideally use small, cross functional teams having complete autonomy in whatever they do, and the teams were supposed to deliver a completely finished and shippable product at the end of the development cycle. In case the product cannot be completed at the end of the development cycle, it could be further extended in the form of another “sprint”. Each development cycle is known as a “sprint”, and typically lasts for two weeks to four weeks. This particular development methodology leads to highly reduced turnaround times, and increased productivity. The main advantage of the methodology is that it delivers a completely shippable product at the end of the development cycle, and the development activity takes very little time. This can lead to increased ROI and reduced overheads since redundant requirements or development activities can be curtailed well in time, and replaced by newer and far more important ones in their place. The word “Scrum” is actually derived from the scrum used in rugby football in which the game is restarted again with new or fresh objectives after it undergoes a minor infraction. The game is “reset” to run again with more effective and meaningful objectives after it experiences a setback. That is exactly what happens while using Scrum methodology. Development is carried out in short sprints, at the end of which the results are evaluated, and if required the sprint is extended with the same or newer aims and objectives.Know more on http://blog.quickscrum.com/post/2014/01/23/The-Origin-And-Key-Principles-Of-Scrum.aspx     

What are Differences and Similarities between Kanban and Scrum?

 There are some Similarities between Kanban and Scrum

1.  Prioritization of the Goal: - In both methods Kanban and Scrum Process  achieving goal is main Purpose of method .Both method give main Priority to make final product.

2. Fast and Pure Development:- The Main purpose of   both method Kanban and Scrum Methodology is make quick and pure development .Pure development means at deployment time no one change will come from client side.

 3.Transparency Between all team members:- Transparency means no one thing is hidden between all team members regarding development. All matter is display into Open Source Scrum tool like quickscrum.com.

Open Source Agile tool

Open Source Agile tool

There are some Differences between Kanban and Scrum

1. Kanban based on Process of Development as an ongoing flow while Scrum is based on iteration.

2. In Scrum Team give commitment to how many work completed in this Sprint is called Scrum Sprint, in kanban not any commitment.

3.  Scrum decide estimation time, Kanban not decide any estimate time.

4.  Scrum required cross functionality of team, Kanban required time to market.

What is Difference between Scrum and Waterfall Methodology?

      Now a Day lots of Model available for Development .But generally most of people in development field use Scrum and Waterfall model for development .If new people come in Developing field, One question is always arias in his mind, What is difference between Scrum and waterfall methodology? And which is best for Today development?

Waterfall is an old traditional method for development that was thought in School and Collages .In the waterfall model; we define stage for development that will be run from Initial to end process. There are following step by step process in waterfall model.

1. Requirement Analysis

2. System Design

3. Implementation

4.Testing

5.Deployment

6.Maintenance

Scrum Methodology is a concept for Quick and pure development cycle. There are Some basic step of Agile Methodologies

                        

1. Project initiation 

2.Scrum Sprint Planning 

3.Daily Scrum

4.Print Retrospective

5. Demo

6. Deployment

There are some Basic Difference between waterfall and Scrum Process

                   -          Waterfall uses Stage when Scrum uses iterations

                   -          Waterfall  job such as Project Manager when Scrum has a Scrum Master

                   -          In waterfall we cannot go back at Previous step when we do this in Scrum

                   -          Developer do not interact with product owner during every stage when in scrum developer                                                 always connect with product owner.

Using Upper understanding Scrum is a best Process for Development Life cycle.

                                                     Created By:- Open Source Scrum tool

Introduction About Basic Terms of Online open source Scrum Tool

     1.     Open Source Scrum Tool:-  Scrum Tool is a Opensource Project management too with rich                    graphical interface for agile project development with scrum methodology that provides                        product backlog , Sprint management, Dashboard, Task board, Burndown chart and  much                    more.           

2.     Product  Backlog:-  The Scrum Backlog Tool is a prioritized quality list which has little description of all functionality of product. Basically Scrum group and its product owner begin by inserting everything they can think of for agile backlog prioritization.The Scrum backlog is then allowed to produce and modify as many is learned about the project and also its customer.

           There are three types of item in Product Backlog

1.     Bugs

2.     Features

3.     Technical work

4.     Knowledge gaining

3.     Sprint Management:-   A  Sprint management is a Decided Time period which exact task has to be finished and completed ready for check.

           Every Sprint start with a Scrum Sprint Planning meeting. At that time The person requesting the            work called  product owner and Team of development upon the same opinion what task will be            completed during the sprint.After this Development team give his opinion and the project owner            has final decide on what criteria need to be met for work to be received.The person who decide            duration of sprint is called Scrum Master

4.     Dashboard:-  Agile Dashboard is a openly and practical available for Product development online. A Scrum Dashboard was basically planned to handle progress for agile product, But this term is used very broadly. Agile Dashboard allow us to describe status of our work which is to do, in working and Completed.

5.     Task Board:-   Task Board is a basic part of Scrum Process. Scrum Task board Consists of Colums and rows. Each row is a use account which function as a element of task that uses by Scrum team for product backlog. Works are stored on colored cards.Group members fill in the task board regularly , Mostly when Daily Scrum meeting arrange based on the progress since the last update.If new task come , it is written on a new placed on the task board.In every day Scrum meeting ,  Changes are made and card are moved in Task board.The colums we use on Scrum task board are to do, Working , Verify and Completed.

6.     Burndown chart:-  A Scrum Burndown Chart is a Diagramatically representation of task left to do vs. Time period.  The Scrum backlog is every time on the X-axis means horizontal. Burndown chart is a run chart backlog .It is useful for calculate when all work will done.MDSTVBAMAVNR

Inventor of Scrum Methodology-Jeff Sutherland

Inventor of Scrum Methodology Jeff Sutherland –The discoverer of Scrum. He was started his job as a Air force pilot in the United State. Air force where he got Top Gun status in 1967 and also flew missions over North Vietnam. Jeff Sutherland’s last tour of responsibility was at Stanford University where he got a M.S. in Statistics and the United States Air force Academy where he taught Statics, Probability and Mathematics.

After Completed job as a pilot in United state air force , Jeff Sutherland joined the faculty of the University of Colorado Medical School and He got his Doctorate degree in University of Colorado Medical  School as Assistance Professor of Radiology , Bio metrics and Preventive Medicine .

He join founder of Cancer Research and The Center for Vitamins under support of Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling and Became Principle researcher of a National Cancer Center for eight years.At that time , he Concerned data file on every cancel patients in Colorado and integration with a national registry, epidemiological studies and research on Super Computer mathematical model of carcinogenics.

After Getting Doctorate degree , In 1983 He joined a banking company that operated 150 banks at North America and He was become VP of higher Systems and General Manager of Their ATM unit.

He has been Chief Technical Officer of 11 Software development Companies. In the Opening 4 Software companies , he introduced Scrum and in the 5^th company made Scrum as we know Today. Jeff Sutherland’s initial aim was the Success of Scrum .

Jeff Sutherland achieved his Goal. Now a day 72% Companies user Agile Scrum method for Development in 92 countries. Jeff Sutherland also want to replace general project management with  Agile Methodology over world to make work Pure and fast for Developers and revenue growth easily achievable for management.

Finally In 2006, Jeff Started his own company named Scrum Inc.Now recognized as the debut source of Scrum Training in the worldwide. He is also lead of Scrum Foundation Adviser and Agile Coach to open view course Partners.

History of Scrum and Its requirement in today

Basically Scrum concept come from rugby football ,a Scrum refers  to the way of restart  the game after the small defect.

Using This concept In 1986, Scrum was defined by Hirotaka Takeuchi and lkujiro Nonaka in New Product Development Game. At that time Scrum was a flexible product development strategy where a development group work as a part to achieve aim as different to a general method of development.

After 1989, in 1990, Ken Schwaber , Jeff Sutherland , John Scumniotales and Jeff Mackenna were introduced   advanced development technique , Scrum Methodology in their development company at Easel Corporation .

http://www.quickscrum.com

In 1995, Sutherland and Schwaber were Become first Scrum master.They jointly presented a paper describing the Scrum process at the project development and insert workshop held as part of Oops concept, Systems and application  in Austin, Texas ,It was first time when Scrum presented in Public . At that time, Sutherland and Schwaber were writing something about their experiences and industry best practice into what is now known as Scrum.

In2001, Schwaber joined with Mike Beadle to explain the method in the book Agile Software development with Scrum.

After this , Many Companies use this process have been known to write it with capital letters as SCRUM.This may be due to one of ken Schwaber’s papers, which capitalized SCRUM in the title.       7th State of Agile Development Survey  was conducted between August 9th  and November  1st ,2012. According to this Survey, Scrum is still the very famous Agile methodologies used. Out of 4,049 software developers that responded, 72% are practicing scrum.

Now a day, Most of Development Companies use Scrum Process for Develop Pure and Fast Development. Today Many Scrum tools Available on the internet like Scrum.org, Quickscrum.com and Many.This tools help us for Project management .

Before Scrum method, In software company was use waterfall model and in this model , They loss Many time and money .After losing time and money, Software Company was not Develop pure product.

In Short , Scrum and Agile tools Become a best option for Project management and Product development.

Bharti Consulting Services SARL, France announces to launch opensource scrum tool by 31st November 2013,

Paris, France  01/08/2013

Bharti Consulting Services SARL, France  announces to launch Opensource scrum tool named as QuickScrum.  Quickscrum Provides all funtionalities related to scrum project management.. You will be able to download tool from our website or directly use it online (SaaS) at http://www.quickscrum.com

There are many free and open scrum source tool available at present in market. Most of them are not easy to use, user friendly or not even easy to Implement and supported. Quickscrum provides extremely user friendly drag and drop interface, highly scalable source code, on demand customization, reports,  integration with other tools, online agile training, well documentation and extremely quick support.

It provides features such as backlog management, sprint planning, task board, dashboard which includes project summary, burndown chart, iteration  progress etc and reports.

We have alredy received great response from agile community and hoping to server all of them greatly.Mr. Mrugesh Panchal (Director of Bcssarl) Said “Quickscrum is very useful for those who are searching for free tool as well as it is perfect for multinational or Midsize companies who are looking for dedicated support and customization as well as business intelligence.”

For more details please visit us at http:\\www.quickscrum.com or send us an email at contactus@quickscrum.com, we will get back to you within 24 hours.

About Bharti Consulting Services SARL, France

Bharti Consulting Services SARL,France is an ISO 9001-2008 certified IT services provider having headquater in Paris, France and offshore  development center in India. We provides Business proces management, Custom software development, Web designing, Dedicated resources, Support and Maintenance services either onsite or offshore based on customer needs. We have customer based mainly in all European countries.

 Contact Information

Company name:  Bharti Consulting  Services SARL
Address :              47, Rue Klock, Clichy  - 92110
Telephone:           0033 – 629 30 23 94
Website:                http://www.quickscrum.com

Email:                     contactus@quickscrum.com