Scrum - Facts

Quiz

Scrum is an evolving methodology. In the last two decades, Scrum is going through rapid changes in order to meet the requirements of the industry. It is very important to be in synchronization with the latest developments in Scrum and their applicability in the Projects.

In this chapter, we will look into -

Scrum Benefits
Scrum Certifications
Scrum FAQs

Scrum Benefits

Scrum supports continuous collaboration among the customer, team members, and relevant stakeholders. Its time-boxed approach and continuous feedback from the product owner ensures working product with essential features all the times. Additionally, Scrum provides different benefits to the different roles in the project.

Benefits to Customer

The Sprints are of shorter duration and prioritized user stories are taken up at every sprint planning. It ensures that at every sprint delivery, the features as required by the customer immediately are included. Further, if a customer raises any change request, it will be absorbed in the current sprint, or included in the very next sprint. Thus, the development team quickly responds to the customers requirements very fast.

Benefits to Organization

Organization can focus on the effort required for development of the prioritized user stories and thus reduce overhead and rework. Due to the specific benefits of scrum to customer, increased efficiency of the development team, customer satisfaction and hence customer retention and customer references will be possible. It increases the market potential of the organization.

Benefits to Product Managers

Product Manager plays the role of Product Owner in the project. The responsibility of the product owner is to ensure customer satisfaction. Since Scrum facilitates quick responses, work prioritization, absorbing changes, product manager can easily ensure that the work is aligned to customer needs, which in turn ensures customer satisfaction.

Benefits to Project Managers

Project Manager plays the role of Scrum Master in the project. The collaborative nature of Scrum facilitates easy and concrete planning and tracking. The use of Burndown Charts to understand the work left, and the Daily Scrum meetings give the Project Manager awareness about the state of the project at all times. This awareness is essential to monitoring the project, and for catching and addressing issues quickly.

Benefits to Development Team

Due to the time-boxed nature of sprints and working product increment delivery at the end of every sprint, the development team becomes enthusiastic to see that their work is used immediately. The built in team collaboration makes the team enjoy the work they do. As the user stories for every sprint are based on customer priorities, team also understands that their work is valued.

Scrum Certifications

Scrum certifications are offered by the Scrum Alliance. Following Certifications are being offered -

Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP)
Certified Scrum Coach (CSC)
Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)

Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)

Certified Scrum Master is the basic certification to become a member of Scrum Alliance, play Scrum Masters Role, and be eligible for other certifications. The certification requires attendance of the CSM course. After that, the candidate gets an email specifying the details of the Scrum membership and the CSM online examination. After taking the examination, the candidate is given the Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) certification.

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

Certified Scrum Product Owner is the basic certification to become a member of Scrum Alliance, play Product Owners role, and be eligible for other certifications.

Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP)

Certified Scrum Practitioner is the certification for experienced ScrumMasters and Product Owners. The candidate should be a ScrumMaster or a Product Owner for at least one year. The candidate must submit an application containing a detailed description of what he or she has done in the specified role.

It is possible for a candidate to acquire the CSP certification immediately after the CSM certification or CSPO certification, provided the candidate is actively practicing the ScrumMasters role, or Product Owners role for the required duration.

Certified Scrum Coach (CSC)

Certified Scrum Coach is the certification for those who focus on coaching. The certification requires that the candidate has coached Scrum Teams through their adoption and mastery of Scrum for at least 1500 hours in the past 5 years.

Certified Scrum Trainer (CST)

Certified Scrum Trainer is the certification for those who want to teach CSM or CSPO classes. Applicants must have either a CSM or CSPO, and should be a CSP for at least a year before applying.

Scrum FAQs

Following are some FAQs regarding Scrum -

Question: What is the difference between Scrum and Agile Development?

Answer : Agile Development is a software methodology, whereas Scrum is one of process frameworks that follows Agile.

Question: Are Sprints and Iterations the same?

Answer : Both Sprints of Scrum and Iterations of Iterative Incremental model deliver working product increments. However, these differ in that:

Lifecycles of Sprint and Iteration are different.
Sprints are time-boxed, while Iterations are not.
Duration of Sprints is much less compared to durations of Iterations.

Question: Is Scrum Master a job title or a role that someone with an existing job title fills?

Answer : Scrum Master is a role that someone with a job title fills. Normal practice is that the person playing the role of project manager plays the ScrumMasters role as well.

Question: Can Product Owner and ScrumMasters roles be played by the same person?

Answer : No, since the ownership differs. Product Owner takes care of the Product Backlog, Prioritization of User Stories, and Validation of the working product increment with the user stories allocated to the Sprint.

Question: Is it that Scrum Projects need not have any Documentation?

Answer : No. Scrum Projects, like any other Projects require documentation such as user stories, design, test cases, etc.

Conclusion

Agile and Scrum are not the same. Scrum is one of the process frameworks adapting Agile. Scrum is advised to teams with experienced team members as the Framework requires great collaboration and self-organization as well. If the Scrum rules are not followed strictly, a project can lead to failure. Hence, it is necessary to have a proper understanding of Scrum concepts among the entire team. Since the Sprints are of short durations and are time-boxed, there is no time to learn the Scrum specifics on the job, even when a Scrum Master continuously monitors the project.

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