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In this chapter, the following are included for clarity and context. They are not part of The Scrum Guide:
New team’s ability to produce an Increment in short Sprints, Continuous planning by the Development Team
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At the end of Sprint Planning, the Development Team starts the development work. The team discusses the work items in the Sprint Backlog and collaboratively decides who will work on what task. Though they may work individually on an item, there is no sole ownership of a Sprint Backlog Item by an individual team member. This is to ensure that there is increased transparency of work within the team, without any individual boundary.
Development work may include the necessary product engineering practices. The Development Team is expected to be cross-functional enough to have all the skills needed for engineering the product Increment without any external help.
A Product Backlog Item is considered to be completely done only if it meets the conditions defined in the definition of “Done.”
The Sprint is too short. How can a Development Team produce a fully functional Increment?
This is one of the major problems new Development Teams face. Usually there are many constraints to creating a fully functional Increment due to the way an Organization may work today, and many of these constraints will block the Development Team’s progress. Some examples in the software development process include:
• The development cycle needs to be followed by a lengthy testing cycle.
• The required skills are not available within the team.
• The Product Backlog Item was not sufficiently decomposed.
Following the Scrum rules helps to avoid many such blockers. For example, staffing the team such that it becomes cross-functional eliminates the problem of lack of required skills. Refining the Product Backlog ahead of Sprint Planning helps to have granular Product Backlog Items that are less complex to develop.
Yet the teams will face many issues that cannot be readily addressed by just following Scrum. The lengthy test cycle is an example.
One of the primary responsibilities of the Scrum Master for new teams is to coach them in the art of working to produce a useable Product Increment within short Sprints. In addition, the Scrum Master needs to coach the team to identify issues every day and learn to resolve those issues by themselves. The road to excellence is a journey, and the team needs to go through this initial learning with the Scrum Master’s help.
When there are issues that are outside the team’s influence, they are called impediments. The Scrum Master needs to own these impediments and resolve them. For example, the lengthy testing cycle example above may be an organizational-level constraint that the Scrum Master needs to work with the larger Organization to find an alternative solution.
Self-organized teams – How would they synchronize and track the collective progress without a manager?
Though the Project Manager role is not there, the traditional job of project planning and control is still performed. The difference is that the planning is continuous, and the entire team performs the planning and control instead of leaving that to a management position.
A Development Team
• Plans how the development work will be performed in terms of decomposing the work into work units. Decomposition for the first days of the Sprint happens in Sprint Planning.
• Tracks the progress against the Sprint plan. The Development Team plans work for the next 24 hours in the Daily Scrum, by inspecting the work since the last Daily Scrum and forecasting upcoming Sprint work. The team may use tools like a Sprint Burn Down that shows how much work is left against the remaining time.
• Takes control and communicates actions if there is a variance between actual progress versus the plan.
• Continues this tracking->re-planning->communicating->controlling cycle every day.
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Since the team is self-organized in Scrum and they manage their own work, they do not need any planning to perform their work.
a) True
b) False
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There are still planning activities in Scrum. Though there is no detailed long-term planning for a complete project, the planning is done for short-term Sprints. Within Sprint, Development Team further plans work for the next 24 hours in the Daily Scrum, by inspecting the work since the last Daily Scrum and forecasting upcoming Sprint work.
This is a more realistic approach, and continuous planning allows the team to be agile enough to pro-actively look for changes and respond to the changes. Correct answer is ‘b.’
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Summary
This chapter is too short to review. Reread, if necessary.