A 2 hour workshop for traditional Project Managers to see how they'd respond and how one would if they were doing scrum. It's a little old (over 2 years ago), but still valuable enough to share.

1. © Copyright 2011 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Workshop scrum
Jesse Houwing
Arnoud Lems
October 2012

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Introduction
Overview
1. Introduction of scrum
2. Digging deeper into the process
3. Hands on: Managing a scrum project
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Concepts of Scrum
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Scrum Primer
Why?
• Controlling Risk
– Time-boxing activities
– Break large complex problems into smaller, manageable
pieces
– Focus on defining smaller commitments which results in
smaller risk
• Improving Predictability
– Teams constantly working in Sprints improve ability to
plan, estimate and make decisions
• Maximising ROI
– Scrum Team concentrates on value gained by doing and
learning rather than value gained from traditional planning
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• Individuals and interactions…
…over processes and tools
• Working software…
…over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration…
…over contract negotiation
• Responding to change…
…over following a plan
Principles

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Better, Faster, Cheaper
Agility == Flexibility
– Agility provides the capacity and capability of rapidly and
efficiently adapting to change
• Scrum embraces….
– Change
– Unpredictability
– Complexity
By the way … these are inescapable constants in
software development
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Scrum defined
•Scrum is…..
–…A Framework for developing and sustaining complex
products
 for example Software Development
–…Lightweight
–…Simple to understand
–…Extremely difficult to master
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Scrum and Agile Primer
Scrum is very popular
• It is the most popular of the agile processes used today
– But it’s not new at all…it’s been in use since the early 90s!
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Scrum and Agile Primer
The Scrum Guide
• Documents the Scrum
Framework – is the official rule
book of Scrum
• Maintained by Ken Schwaber
and Jeff Sutherland
• Available at
http://www.scrum.org
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How does it work?
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Roles in a scrum team
• Product Owner
– Determines what features go into product
• Scrum Master
– Responsible for Project Status and Coordination, Scrum
Team productivity and removal of impediments to progress
• Team Members
– Responsible for building and testing high-quality software
• Everyone else (people to do
Funding, Acceptance, Delivery & Support,…) are outside
of Scrum Team
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Product
Backlog
Sprint
Backlog
Sprint
Daily
Red, Gree
n, Refactor
Potentially
Shippable
Increment
Overview of the process

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Ceremonial
• Sprint planning meeting
– Determine sizing of stories on the product backlog
– Create the sprint backlog
• Daily standup
– Monitor the sprint backlog
– Detect issues
• Sprint review meeting
– Present the result of the sprint to the PO (and stakeholders)
• Retrospective
– Give feedback on the way the sprint was conducted
– Decide on improvements for the next sprint
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Counter indicators for scrum
• Lack of technical capability to support short cycles
• Lack of sponsorship both internally and from customer
• Customer expects scrum but with “waterfall approach”
• Customer is resistance to transparency
• Customer is resistant to accountability
• We have no clue what it is but it sounds cool
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Scrum compared to waterfall

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Contents
• Illumination versus empirical
• Principles
• Roles
• Process
• Ceremonial
• Accountability
• Q&A

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The Illumination process
RFP
• RFP Team is formed
• Solution architecture
• Estimation
Start up
• Project team formation
• Solution validation
Execution
• Plan based execution
Delivery
• Release/go live
• Sign off

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Illumination based approach
• Estimation in exact effort
• Estimating is performed mystically
• Cost and timeline based on estimated effort
• Fixed price, fixed scope
• Different people involved in RFP phase and actual
project
• PM monitors planning, scope and contract
• RFC’s deal with scope changes
• Change resistent
• Constraint commitment made by management

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The emprical process
RFP
• RFP is scheduled for a team (or teams)
• Solution architecture
• Estimation
Start up
• Sprint 0
• Solution validation
Execution
• Plan based execution
• Release/go live
Delivery
• Sign off

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Emprical approach
• Estimation in relative complexity
• Use team velocity for estimating cost and time line
• (Fixed price or fixed date) and fixed quality
• Existing team is lined up
• Designated team schedules sprint 0
• PM monitors contract
• Team commitment for sprint (and project) constraints
• (PM acts as product owner)
• (PM acts as scrum master)

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Accountability
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Traditionally Scrum
Date/cost commitments Project Manager PO
Optimise value (ROI) ? PO
Fully communicate changes to
stakeholders
Project Manager ? PO
Transparency ? Scrum Master
Project Status Project Manager PO
Productivity Improvements Development
Managers
Development Teams
Product change based on empirical
evidence
? PO
Quality QA Development Teams
Impediment Removal Development
Managers
Scrum Master
Organisational change to Agile ? Management

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Release planning
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Product
Backlog
Sprint
Backlog
Sprint
Daily
Red,
Green,
Refactor
Potentially
Shippable
Increment
Step 1: Establish a backlog

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Create user story/PBI
• Entering User Stories/PBIs involves a 3-part structure
– A Role
 “As a Salesperson…”
– A Feature
 “..I want to enter my leads…”
– A Benefit
 “…so that I remember to contact them.”
• A User Story is not a Use Case
– No interaction between actors
• A User Story is not a Requirements Document
– Too detailed
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5
3
8
3
Product
Backlog
1
8
Priority
5
Step 2: Establish priority

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5
3
8
3
Product
Backlog
1
8
5
Step 3: Groom the backlog
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Acceptance Criteria
• I can search for ….
• I can pay with a ….
• I can view and edit
…
Product
Backlog
Step 4: Acceptance criteria

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Release 2
Product
Backlog
Step 5: Create a release schedule
Release 1

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Preparing a sprint
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Product
Backlog
Sprint
Backlog
Sprint
Daily
Red,
Green,
Refactor
Potentially
Shippable
Increment
Preparing a Sprint
At a glance - Overview

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5
8
5
Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Preparing a Sprint
At a glance - Sprint Planning – Part 1
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Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Preparing a Sprint
At a glance - Sprint Planning – Part 1

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Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Preparing a Sprint
At a glance - Sprint Planning – Part 2

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Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
TOO BIG!
Preparing a Sprint
At a glance - Sprint Planning – Part 2

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Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
COMM
IT!
Preparing a Sprint
At a glance - Sprint Planning – Part 2

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Running a sprint
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Product
Backlog
Sprint
Backlog
Sprint
Daily
Red, Gree
n, Refactor
Potentially
Shippable
Increment
Running a Sprint
At a glance - overview

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Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Running a Sprint
At a glance – part 1

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Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Running a Sprint
At a glance – part 2

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Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Running a Sprint
At a glance – part 3

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Product
Backlog
Sprint Backlog
Running a Sprint
At a glance – part 4

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Excercise
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Excercise managing a scrum project
• Devide into teams
• A scenario is presented to all teams
• Each team takes 5-10 minutes to discuss and give an
answer to the particular scenario
• One team presents the answer and motivation
• Discussion in the group
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Scenario 1
• You are a scrum master running a scrum project
• The sprint is going well
• The Product Owner contacts you and asks to increase the
scope of the sprint
• He does not mind that the sprint is extended for a week
due to the increased scope
What is your response?
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Scenario 2
• You are a product owner
• The final sprint before a release is about to start
• During the sprint planning meeting the development team
is discussing the scope for the sprint
• They decide to leave a user story out of the sprint because
it won’t fit the sprint
• You really want the story to be in the sprint
What do you do?
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Scenario 3
• You are a scrum master in a project
• The customer walks in conveys his concern about the
overhead on the project. He sees the team in the stand up
every day, between sprints entire days are spent in
meetings.
• He demands you cut back on meeting time
What is your response?
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Scenario 4
• You are the scrum master in a scrum team
• Most important stories on the board are near completion
• Customer suggests to shift maintenance to India and move
the development team to Bratislava leaving just a skeleton
crew in the Netherlands to work on a few final stories
How to organize this?
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Scenario 5
• You are a scrum master in a scrum project
• During grooming the team notices a gap in technical
knowledge needed to successfully implement an upcoming
sprint
• Maybe the Product Owner is able to provide someone
from a different scrum team to perform the necessary work
How do you handle this situation?
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Excercise
• Scrum comes with certain challenges when implementing
it
• A challenge is presented, discuss the way to handle the
challenge in your team
• One team presents their answer
• The answer is discussed
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Challenge 1 – Enterprise architecture
• In any software project within an enterprise you have to
comply to certain architecture standards
• Sometimes this means that you need approval from
outside your team (e.g. from the enterprise architect)
before you start building (part of) the solution
How does this effect scrum?
What is the recommended scrum approach?
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Challenge 2 – Scrum in a waterfall
environment
• Waterfall projects usually commit budget for a given set of
requirements
• The environment expects detailed commitment before
releasing budget
• Budgets are fixed without knowing all the technical details
How do you convince a customer or manager?
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Challenge 3 – Progress reporting
• Scrum reports velocity from past sprints, task burndown for
the current sprint and story points for backlog items
• Traditionally customers (and PM’s) are custom to receiving
reports on individual team member level, detailing both
progress and time spent on tasks
What are the reasons scrum does not provide these
metrics?
How to explain to a customer how to interpret the scrum
reports
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Challenge 4 – Project cycle
• Skills needed early differ from skills needed near
completion of the project
• Scrum works best with constant teams
Why would want to keep your teams constant?
What does this require of the team?
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Conclusion
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