Scrum is a project management and control process that cuts through complexity to focus on building products that meet business needs. Management and teams are able to get their hands around the requirements and technologies, never let go and delivering working products, incrementally and empirically.
Scrum is simple. It is the opposite of the big collection of interwoven mandatory components. Scrum is not a methodology. Scrum implements the scientific method of empiricism. Scrum replaces a programmed algorithmic approach with the heuristic one, with respect for people and self-organization to deal with unpredictability and solving complex problems.
- Product owner creates a prioritized wish list called a product backlog.
- During sprint planning, the team pulls a small chunk from the top of the wish list, a sprint backlog, and decides how to implement those pieces.
- The team has certain amount of time – a sprint (usually two to four weeks) – to complete its work, but it meets each day to access its progress. (daily scrum)
- Along the way the scrum master keeps the team focused on its goal.
- At the end of the sprint, the work should be potentially shippable, ready to hand to a customer, put on a store shelf, or show to a stakeholder.
- The sprint ends with sprint review and retrospective.
- As the next sprint begins, the team chooses the another chunk of the product backlog and begins working again.
Team and roles in scrum:
Product owner : Product owner is the cornerstone of project success, responsible for defining the work that needs to be completed and prioritizing the work. He or she needs to know what the project is expected to deliver and why these elements are important – to customer, to the market, to the organization. The product owner must also be the face of all of those interests to the project team, acting as an expert guide as the team carries out the project.
An important difference between the product owner and any nominally similar role in project execution is that product owner remains actively involved throughout. For example the product owner reviews and reprioritize the outstanding work based on shifting needs and ongoing feedback. That contrast with traditional sponsor, who defines the all the work upfront in the scope statement. By extension, the product owner also responsible for communicating and explaining those changing priorities and their impacts to the project team.
The product owner is the hub of the business value and scrum initiatives. His or her entire focus is on ensuring that the work actually done aligns with the work that needs to be done to meet the project objectives. This may create the temptation for the product owners to try to control the work, but that is not part of their role. A product owner must be highly self disciplined to avoid trying to manage self disciplined team’s activity. He or she assisted in that by scrum Master.
The Product Owner is the captain of the ship, while the Scrum Master is the First Lieutenant; one decides on the mission, the other works with the crew to ensure proper and efficient execution of the necessary tasks to accomplish the mission.
Scrum master:
The ScrumMaster role has two distinct elements. First, he or she acts as the protector of the team, making sure that everyone on the project, especially the development team members, can focus on their work without any distractions. Some of those distractions may be directly associated with the work — the product owner who oversteps the boundaries, for example, and starts to dictate the work approach to the team. Or the ScrumMaster may need to protect the team from organizational disruptions or internal distractions — arranging to replace problematic computers or providing a less noisy work area, for example.
The second element of the ScrumMaster role is to protect the Scrum process itself. The ScrumMaster is the expert on how Scrum works and how it should be applied. He or she will ensure that the product owner and development team stay within the Scrum framework. By extension, the ScrumMaster can coach the other team members on how to use Scrum in the most effective manner.
This is a very different role from that of a traditional project manager, despite frequent comparisons made between the two. Project managers are responsible for managing the work of project team members, and that guides their own day-to-day work. For the ScrumMaster, however, the only formal accountability is over the process.
Scrum Master is a Servant leader, does not command but empowers the team.
Scrum Team/Team Members
The Team is responsible for turning the product backlog items into increments of value in each Sprint. It consists of a cross functional team of 7 +- 2 people. There might be core team members and shared team members. They are self-organizing and collaborating. The team also contains generalized specialists where one team member can help in more than one task. They deliver value in small chunks in sprints. They are committed. They are focused on customer and build in quality.
The Scrum team consists of BA’s, Developers, Tech Architects, Data Analysts/Data Modelers, Testers, etc. The scrum team basically consists of IT athletes who basically can take the project and run. That said, the roles specifically point to how the deliverable can be achieved together rather than individually.