Scrum for Dummies

by Layton, Mark C.; Morrow, David

• ISBN13: 9781119467649
• ISBN10: 1119467640
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2018-05-15
• Publisher: For Dummies

Summary

Use scrum in all aspects of life

Scrum is an agile project management framework that allows for flexibility and collaboration to be a part of your workflow. Primarily used by software developers, scrum can be used across many job functions and industries. Scrum can also be used in your personal life to help you plan for retirement, a trip, or even a wedding or other big event.

Scrum provides a small set of rules that create just enough structure for teams to be able to focus their innovation on solving what might otherwise be an insurmountable challenge. Scrum For Dummies shows you how to assemble a scrum taskforce and use it to implement this popular Agile methodology to make projects in your professional and personal life run more smoothly—from start to finish.

• Discover what scrum offers project and product teams
• Integrate scrum into your agile project management strategy
• Plan your retirement or a family reunion using scrum
• Prioritize for releases with sprints

No matter your career path or job title, the principles of scrum are designed to make your life easier. Why not give it a try?

Author Biography

Mark C. Layton, "Mr. Agile^®," is an executive and BoD advisor. He is the Los Angeles chair for the Agile Leadership Network, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), and founder of agile transformation firm Platinum Edge. Mark is also coauthor of Agile Project Management For Dummies. David Morrow is a Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified Agile Coach (ICP-ACC), and an executive agile coach.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Conventions Used in This Book 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Getting Started with Scrum 5

Chapter 1: The Basics of Scrum 7

The Bird’s-Eye Basics 8

Roadmap to value 8

Scrum overview 10

Scrum teams 11

Governance 12

Scrum framework 12

The Feedback Feast 15

Agile Roots 16

Three pillars of improvement 16

One Agile Manifesto 17

Twelve Agile Principles 18

Three platinum principles 20

The Five Scrum Values 22

Commitment 23

Focus 23

Openness 24

Respect 24

Courage 24

Part 2: Running a Scrum Project 25

Chapter 2: The First Steps 27

Getting Your Scrum On 28

Show me the money 28

I want it now 30

I’m not sure what I want 30

Is that bug a problem? 31

Your company’s culture 31

The Power in the Product Owner 32

Why Product Owners Love Scrum 34

The Company Goal and Strategy: Stage 1 35

Structuring your vision 36

Finding the crosshair 37

The Scrum Master 38

Scrum master traits 38

Scrum master as servant leader 39

Why scrum masters love scrum 40

Common Roles Outside Scrum 42

Stakeholders 42

Scrum mentors 43

Chapter 3: Planning Your Project 45

The Product Roadmap: Stage 2 46

Take the long view 46

Use simple tools 47

Create your product roadmap 48

Set your time frame 49

Breaking Down Requirements 50

Prioritization of requirements 50

Levels of decomposition 51

Seven steps of requirement building 52

Your Product Backlog 53

The dynamic to-do list 55

Product backlog refinement 55

Other possible backlog items 59

Product Backlog Common Practices 59

User stories 59

Further refinement 62

Chapter 4: The Talent and the Timing 63

The Development Team 64

The uniqueness of scrum development teams 64

Dedicated teams and cross-functionality 65

Self-organizing and self-managing 68

Co-locating or the nearest thing 69

Getting the Edge on Backlog Estimation 70

Your Definition of Done 71

Common Practices for Estimating 73

Fibonacci numbers and story points 74

Velocity 80

Chapter 5: Release and Sprint Planning 83

Release Plan Basics: Stage 3 84

Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize 86

Release goals 88

Release sprints 89

Release plan in practice 90

Sprinting to Your Goals 92

Defining sprints 92

Planning sprint length 93

Following the sprint life cycle 95

Planning Your Sprints: Stage 4 97

Sprint goals 97

Phase I 98

Phase II 98

Your Sprint Backlog 99

The burndown chart benefit 100

Setting backlog capacity 101

Working the sprint backlog 103

Prioritizing sprints 104

Chapter 6: Getting the Most Out of Sprints 107

The Daily Scrum: Stage 5 108

Defining the daily scrum 108

Scheduling a daily scrum 110

Conducting a daily scrum 110

Making daily scrums more effective 111

Team Task Board 112

Swarming 114

Dealing with rejection 115

Handling unfinished requirements 117

The Sprint Review: Stage 6 117

The sprint review process 118

Stakeholder feedback 119

Product increments 120

The Sprint Retrospective: Stage 7 120

The sprint retrospective process 121

The Derby and Larsen process 122

Inspection and adaptation 124

Chapter 7: Inspect and Adapt: How to Correct Your Course 125

Need for Certainty 125

The Feedback Loop 126

Transparency 128

Antipatterns 129

External Forces 130

In-Flight Course Correction 130

Testing in the Feedback Loop 131

Culture of Innovation 132

Part 3: Scrum for Industry 135

Chapter 8: Software Development 137

Scrum and Software Development: A Natural Fit 138

Software Flexibility and Refactoring 140

Release often and on demand 141

Customize your release sizes 141

Inspect and adapt as you release 142

Embracing Change 142

Development team challenges 143

Business alignment with technology 143

Up-front engineering 145

Emergent architecture 146

Scrum Applications in Software 147

Video-game development 148

Services 151

Customization projects 152

Chapter 9: Tangible Goods Production 155

The Fall of Waterfall 156

Construction 157

The best in bids 157

Scrum roles in construction 158

Customer involvement 159

The subcontractor dilemma 160

Worker safety 161

Scrum in Home Building 163

Manufacturing 164

Survival of the fastest to market 165

Shareholder value 165

Strategic capacity management 166

Hardware Development 167

Early identification of high-risk requirements 167

Live hardware development 167

Chapter 10: Services 171

Health Care and Scrum 171

Speed to market 173

Reduced mistakes, increased quality 175

Cost cutting 176

Adhering to regulations 177

Medical device manufacturing and safety 178

Education and Scrum 180

Challenges in education 180

Scrum in the classroom 183

Military and Law Enforcement 186

Chapter 11: Publishing: A Shifting Landscape 189

A Changing Landscape in Publishing 190

Inspecting, adapting, and refactoring 190

Applying scrum 192

News Media and Scrum 194

Defining done for content 195

The news-media scrum team 196

Sprint flexibility 197

Part 4: Scrum for Business Functions 199

Chapter 12: IT Management and Operations 201

Big Data and Large-Scale Migration 202

Data warehouse project management 203

Enterprise resource planning 205

The Service-versus-Control Conundrum 208

Security challenges 209

The Retiring-Boomer Gap 210

Profit-and-Loss Potential 211

Innovation versus Stability 212

DevOps 212

Maintenance 213

Kanban within a scrum structure 214

Chapter 13: Portfolio Management 219

Portfolio Management Challenges 220

People allocation and prioritization 220

Dependencies and fragmentation 222

Disconnect between projects and business objectives 222

Displaced accountability 223

Scrum solutions 223

Lean Startup 225

Scaling Scrum for Large Portfolios 228

A Vertical Slicing Overview 228

Scrum of Scrums 230

Product owner scrum of scrums 230

Development team scrum of scrums 231

Scrum master scrum of scrums 231

Scrum at Scale 232

Scaling the scrum master 233

Scaling the product owner 234

Synchronizing in one hour a day 236

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) 237

Portfolio 238

Program 238

Team 239

Advantages of the SAFe Model 239

TDD and CI 239

Code quality 240

Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) 241

LeSS framework 242

LeSS Huge framework 243

Chapter 14: Human Resources and Finance 247

Human Resources and Scrum 248

Creating the Right Culture 249

HR and existing organization structures 250

HR and scrum in hiring 252

Performance reviews 253

Finance 258

Incremental funding 258

Statements of position (SOP) 261

Scrum and budgets 261

Chapter 15: Business Development 263

Scrum and Marketing 264

Marketing evolution 264

Scrum and social media 265

Scrum in marketing 266

Scrum in Action for Marketing 267

CafePress 268

Xerox 268

Scrum for Sales 269

The scrum solution 270

The scrum sales process 272

Chapter 16: Customer Service 277

Customers: The Most Crucial Stakeholders 278

The service conundrum 278

Information overload 279

Scrum and Customer Service 280

Inspect and adapt through feedback 280

Customer service product backlog 281

Customer service definition of done 282

Look inward 283

Inspect and adapt in practice 284

Scrum in Action in Customer Service 285

Part 5: Scrum for Everyday Life 287

Chapter 17: Dating and Family Life 289

Finding Love with Scrum 290

Setting a vision 291

Dating in layers 292

Discovering companionship and scrum 293

Dating with scrum 294

Winning as a team 295

Focusing versus multitasking 296

Planning your wedding with scrum 298

Families and Scrum 299

Setting family strategy and project visions 300

Planning and setting priorities 300

Communicating with scrum 303

Inspecting and adapting for families 304

Making chores fun and easy 305

Chapter 18: Scrum for Life Goals 307

Getting to Retirement 307

Saving for emergencies 308

Building retirement 309

Securing financial freedom 310

Retiring debt 312

Achieving Fitness and Weight Goals 312

Keeping Life Balance 314

Planning Travel 316

Studying 319

Learning early 319

Graduating from high school 320

Achieving in college 323

Part 6: The Part of Tens 325

Chapter 19: Ten Steps to Transition to Scrum 327

Conduct an Audit 327

Identify and Recruit Talent 328

Ensure Proper Training 329

Mobilize a Transition Team 329

Identify Pilot Project 330

Maximize Environment Efficiency 332

Reduce Single Points of Failure 332

Establish Definition of Done 333

Kick Off Pilot Project 333

Inspect, Adapt, Mature, and Scale 334

Inspect and adapt sprint 1 335

Maturity 335

Scale virally 336

Chapter 20: Ten Pitfalls to Avoid 337

Faux Scrum 337

Lack of Training 338

Ineffective Product Owner 338

Lack of Automated Testing 338

Lack of Transition Support 339

Inappropriate Environment 339

Poor Team Selection 340

Lax Discipline 340

Lack of Support for Learning 340

Watered-Down Process 341

Chapter 21: Ten Key Benefits of Scrum 343

Better Quality 343

Decreased Time to Market 344

Increased Return on Investment 344

Higher Customer Satisfaction 345

Higher Team Morale 345

Increased Collaboration and Ownership 347

More Relevant Metrics 347

Improved Progress Visibility and Exposure 348

Increased Project Control 349

Reduced Risk 350

Chapter 22: Ten Key Metrics for Scrum 351

Sprint Goal Success Rates 352

Defects 352

Time to Market 353

Return on Investment 354

Total project duration and cost 355

New requests within ROI budgets 355

Capital Redeploymen 355

Satisfaction Surveys 356

Team Member Turnover 357

Project Attrition 358

Skill Versatility 358

Manager:Creator Ratio 359

Chapter 23: Ten Key Resources for Scrum 361

Scrum Alliance 361

The Agile Alliance 362

Scrumguides.org 362

Scrum.org 363

Scruminc.com (Scrum at Scale) 363

ScrumPLoP 363

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) 363

LeSS 364

InfoQ 364

Platinum Edge 364

Index 367