Sunday 12 February 2017

Scrum Check: Are you following Scrum or ScrumBut or None?




According to a recent article by Forbes, "The overall success rate of projects delivered using Scrum reported by respondents is 62%. (Teams of the recommended size for Scrum — seven plus or minus two -- members — report the most frequent success, while smaller and larger teams both report less frequent success.)"

Success rate of any project framework highly depends on the way we are implementing it.

Scrum or ScrumBut?


Organizations have different work cultures, different teams, different project sizes, and different processes. Many of the times, we see that organizations implement Scrum but with some changes to it. We call it- "ScrumBut"

It is when we ask a team, Do you follow Scrum framework? and they say-

"Yes, We follow Scrum but we don't do Retrospective meeting"
Or
"Yes, We follow Scrum but we don't do daily scrum meetings, we meet weekly."
Click here to Learn more about ScrumBut

Friends, if you are implementing Scrum and unsure about it, here is a check for you to determine whether you are really following "Scrum" or "ScrumBut" or "None"?


Scrum Check!


Below is the list of questions, and here is the scenario:

If you answer "Yes" to all of these below, then "Congratulations!!! You are doing a great job with Scrum implementation". 

If you answer, "No to some of them", then it's a "ScrumBut" and not "Scrum"

If you answer, "No to most or all of them", then "Sorry friends, you are not following Scrum".

Scrum Artifacts

  • Are you using Product Backlog?
    • Do you have a product backlog defined by the Product Owner?
    • Is it prioritized by business value by the Product Owner?
    • Is it being refined and maintained?
    • Are the top items estimated by the team?
    • Learn more about Product Backlog here
  • Are you using Sprint Backlog?
    • Is it estimated and finalized by team members?
    • Is approved by the Product Owner?
    • Is your Sprint backlog visible to everyone?
    • Is your Sprint backlog daily updated for progress?
    • Does your Sprint backlog clearly show what is to do, doing and done?
    • Learn more about Sprint Backlog here
  • Are you using Burn-down charts?


Scrum Ceremonies

  • Sprint Planning Meetings 
    • Does Product Owner participate in this meeting?
    • Does whole team participate in this meeting?
    • Is the Sprint backlog finalized by the end of Sprint Planning meeting?
    • Is the Product Owner satisfied with Sprint backlog?
    • Does everyone understand Definition of Done (DoD)?
    • At the end of this, Does whole team know what their tasks are and what needs to be delivered by the end of the sprint?
  • Daily Scrum Meetings
    • Is it Time-boxed for 15 minutes? i.e. It should not last more than 15 minutes.
    • Is the team talking about progress and impediments?
    • Is the team updating Scrum board or any other Scrum tool for progress? (Moving items from To Do to Doing, Doing to Done)
    • Is the team updating Burn down chart? 
  • Sprint Review Meetings
    • Is the product ready for demo according to Definition of Done?
    • Is the team giving incremental product demonstration to product owner?
    • Is the product owner participating and giving feedback?
  • Sprint Retrospective Meetings
    • Is it happening at the end of each sprint?
    • Are you checking what to Start, Stop and Continue?
    • Is your process continuously improving?


Team

  • Is your team size less than 9 and more than 5?
  • Is your team self-managed?
  • Is your team cross-functional?


Iterations

  • Are your iterations more than 1 week and less than 4 weeks?
  • Are your iterations estimated and planned?


Handling Changes

  • Are you managing Scope while welcoming changes?
  • Are you not allowing any change within an iteration?
  • Are you allowing changes during Product backlog refinement?


Other factors!

  • Are you happy with team's performance and having fun?
  • Are you all motivated to improve, inspect and adapt?
  • Is it resulting in incremental product deliverable?

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