Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber spoke on this basis in the early 90s Scrum implemented in the business world and thus a agile working method of project management developed.
Ultimately, Scrum is of course not based on a term from rugby, but on the theory of empirical process control. Knowledge arises through experiences and decisions that are made based on facts.
But how exactly does Scrum work in everyday work?
Scrum is all about getting the work done organize. This takes place in so-called Sprints instead of. A sprint represents a period of time - usually two to four weeks - in which previously set goals are to be achieved.
The sprints must be planned, carried out and then discussed together in the team. A sprint includes planning, daily meetings, the review and the retrospective. We have summarized exactly what these terms mean for you below.
Sprint planning
Be at the beginning of a sprint Goals to be worked towards over the course of the sprint. Of course, this requires tasks. These are determined in advance and distributed among the team. Attention is always paid to which member is with his Skills best suited for a specific task in order to achieve the greatest possible work efficiency.
Tasks or subtasks are displayed on tickets in order to keep an overview. Every team member has access to all tickets, ensuring a high level of Transperency is guaranteed.
Sprints can be done in a variety of ways Tools planned, organized and carried out.
Daily meetings
In order to keep an even better overview, a daily meeting is held within the teams. This is usually called Daily or Stand up called. During the meeting, each team member goes through yesterday's tasks and those planned for the current day. In this meeting, problems are also addressed and experiences are shared. Usually the tickets are shown on which the tasks in question are recorded. This way, all team members get an overview of what is currently being discussed at the same time.
Sprint review
A sprint review takes place at the end of a sprint. In the review, the tasks completed in the sprint are presented and discussed by the entire team. This may also identify tasks that could not be completed during the sprint and/or identify new tasks for the next sprint.
Sprint retrospective
In addition to the review, there is also a retrospective at the end of a sprint. The social aspects of a completed sprint are discussed here. How did the collaboration go? What problems need to be fixed? How did the agreements work with each other?
There are several for a retrospective Methods. However, the start-stop-continue method is often discussed. It is discussed which concepts should be started again, which should be ended or continued in future sprints.
Which roles need to be assigned?
There are three different roles in the Scrum method. The roles include various tasks and responsibilities.
The Product Owner is the interface between the various stakeholders. He consults with customers, identifies problems and, based on this, creates tasks and assigns them to the most suitable teams. The product owner therefore bears the greatest responsibility. Ideally, there is only one product owner per project, so that in the event of problems there is always only one central point of contact and instructions only come from one person.
The so-called Scrum Masters can be viewed as the team leader. Individual teams are formed based on the tasks specified by the product owner. These are made by one Scrum Masters directed. The tasks of a Scrum Master are to create optimal working conditions, coordinate the team and be in regular communication with the product owner.
The remaining participants in a project are: Team members. They therefore form the third and final group. Your activities consist of processing the tasks specified by the product owner. The tasks are distributed independently within the team based on the respective skills. Within the team, all members are at the same hierarchical level and all have different areas of responsibility. This structure enables very individual and flexible work.
Using the Scrum method has many advantages
- The Risk is minimized, because there is constant communication between each other. This means that risks are identified directly and a quick solution can be found.
- Transperency is guaranteed by the dailies. Everyone in the team is updated daily and any ambiguities are quickly resolved.
- The Responsibility is distributed among all team members.
- The Communication is strengthened. Thanks to the many agreements and short communication channels, there is a regular and efficient exchange between each other.
- One increased flexibility is ensured by dividing the tasks. In this way, changes in the tasks for the next sprint can be identified and implemented early.
Anyone who says A must also say B: The disadvantages of Scrum
- There is one high communication and coordination effort due to the many meetings and agreements within a team.
- Danger of tunnel vision! In a sprint there is a clear focus on x specific tasks. This can often lead to other, important topics being forgotten.
- Loss of time if the sprint planning is too defensive. If too few sub-tasks are planned in a sprint, the completion of the large task will take significantly longer.
And how do we use the Scrum method in everyday life at FoxBase?
1:1 like in the textbook is not the case. We have found that using parts of Scrum is very useful and helpful, but we cannot and do not want to use all elements.
For example, we do not have a designated product owner per team and we do not have a Scrum Master in all teams. Often the team lead emerges from his work as a natural Scrum Master and also creates the tasks for the remaining team members, even though this would actually be the job of the product owner. However, there are also teams where each team member is responsible for filling their own sprint with tasks. These tasks are then discussed with the remaining team members and checked for completeness.
Not all tasks in our sprints are subtasks of a larger task or project, but rather just small things that need to be done.
Our sprints are always three weeks long, start with a planning meeting and end with a combination of a review and retrospective meeting. So we follow the rules of the game in that respect. 😉
We also connect Scrum with our defined OKRs and use the tool to do this Trello or Gitlabto record the tasks.
To briefly summarize: What is Scrum?
- Scrum is one agile working method, which is primarily used in software development.
- A large part of Scrum is the so-called Sprints, which usually last two to four weeks.
- Scrum consists of several elements and meetings.
- In Scrum there are fixed roll. These are the Product Owner, Scrum Master and the remaining team members.
- The aim of the deployment is to organize the work and to achieve a high level Flexibility and free space to be able to guarantee.
