This Summary of The Scrum Guide is Based on The Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, who developed Scrum, available here
A definition of Scrum: a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value….it is a framework within which you can employ various processes and techniques.
The Scrum framework consists of:
- Scrum teams
- Events
- Artifacts
- Rules which bind together the events, roles, and artifacts, governing the relationships and interaction between them
Three pillars uphold every implementation of Scrum:
- Transparency–significant aspects of the development process must be visible to those responsible for the outcome
- Inspection–scrum users must frequently inspect Scrum artifacts and progress toward a Sprint Goal to detect undesirable variances
- Adaptation–if an aspect of the process or a material is failing to meet requirements it must be adjusted immediately
Scrum has four types of inspection and adaption:
- Sprint planning
- Daily scrum
- Sprint review
- Sprint retrospective
The Scrum Team consists of:
- The Product Owner–responsible for maximizing the value of the product and the work of the Development Team. The sole person responsible for managing the Product Backlog, ie defining the Product Backlog items, ordering them to achieve goals and missions, optimizing the value of the work the dev team performs, ensuring the backlog is transparent and shows what the team will work on next, and ensuring the dev team understands the items on the backlog.
- The Dev Team–professionals who do the work of delivering a potentially releasable Increment of “Done” product at the end of each Sprint. The team is self-organizing, decides how to turn the backlog into Increments of potentially releasable functionality, has no titles other than Developer, and while individuals may have specialized skills and areas of focus the entire team is accountable for all aspects of the development process. Teams ideally have between 4-8 members.
- The Scrum Master–responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood and enacted. Scrum Masters do this by ensuring that the Scrum Team adheres to Scrum theory, practices, and rules.
Scrum Events include:
- The Sprint–a time-box of one month or less during which a “Done”, useable, and potentially releasable product Increment is created
- Sprint Planning– creates the Sprint Goal, which is an objective set for the Sprint that can be met through the implementation of Product Backlog
- Daily Scrum–a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team to synchronize activities and create a plan for the next 24 hours. Members explain what they did yesterday, will do today, and whether there are any roadblocks to their progress
- Sprint Review–a time-boxed informal meeting held at the end of the Sprint to inspect the Increment and adapt the Product Backlog if needed.
- Sprint Retrospective–an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint.
Scrum Artifacts include:
- Product Backlog–an ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product and is the single source of requirements for any changes to be made to the product
- Sprint Backlog–the set of Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint, plus a plan for delivering the product Increment and realizing the Sprint Goal. The Sprint Backlog is a forecast by the Development Team about what functionality will be in the next Increment and the work needed to deliver that functionality into a “Done” Increment.