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Agile Project Management
Agile project management is an iterative approach of managing software projects that emphasizes continuous release and incorporating customer feedback with every iteration. It is a chain of rapid development and deployment that provides quick results and more efficiency.
Some important features of Agile methodology are:
Customers are satisfied as a working feature of the software is delivered after every sprint.
Customer feedback can be accommodated in the upcoming sprints.
Daily interactions are possible between the stakeholders and the developers.
Agile methodologies are more flexible and adaptable, so it is easier to respond to changes in requirements even in the later stages of the development.
Here are some of the most common Agile frameworks: Scrum, Kanban, Lean, Extreme Programming (XP), Crystal, Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Feature Driven Development (FDD).
Scrum
While Agile is a set of principles, Scrum is a very popular Agile Framework through which teams collaborate and deliver value products continuously. In Scrum, a product is built in a series of iterations called sprints through which a complex project can be broken down into bite-sized pieces. It also ensures that the product will meet all the business requirements. The duration of each sprint is two-three weeks based on the amount of work. In every sprint a specific functionality will be defined, developed and tested.
Different Roles in a Scrum Team
We will go into detail about the three primary roles in a scrum team.
A Scrum team is composed of three roles: the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the Development Team. Although there is only one Scrum Master and one product owner, the development team often consists of several people.
Product Owner
The product owner ensures that the team develops a valuable product and speaks on behalf of the customer and also acts as a bridge between the business and the technical teams.
Some of the main responsibilities of the product owner are:
After understanding the needs of the customer and the business, scrum product owners build the product backlog in accordance with those needs.
The product owner needs to prioritize the work based on all of these inputs.
The product owner must also be aware of when to release the products.
The product owner will need to collaborate with all the stakeholders to make sure that the development team is producing a value product.
Scrum Master
The scrum master facilitates the scrum process and makes sure that the scrum principles and practices are followed. In addition to that, the scrum master also assists the development team in delivering value, the product owner in defining value, and the overall improvement of the scrum team.
Some of the main responsibilities of the scrum master are:
Conducting daily standups or the daily scrum and facilitating other team meetings like sprint planning, sprint review and retrospective meeting.
Interacting individually with team members and stakeholders as needed for the development of the team.
Preparing Burndown charts and regular analysis of all the reports to understand the team's progress.
The scrum master constantly checks with the team for any external or internal roadblocks and helps to eliminate them.
Development team
The development team or the developers include all the people who are responsible to deliver a value product increment, like designers, writers, programmers and testers. The developers work together with the product owner and scrum master to understand requirements and deliver high quality results at the end of each sprint.
Some of the main responsibilities of the development team are:
It is the development team's duty to deliver a product with clear business values.
The team begins by creating the product plan and assigns responsibilities to the various team members.
The developers focus mainly on the quality of the product.
Attending daily scrum meetings and other team meetings in order to maintain transparency throughout the sprint.
Scrum Artifacts
Scrum artifacts are essential components used by stakeholders and the scrum team to understand about the product being developed, the steps taken in developing it, and the actions completed during the project. The product backlog, sprint backlog, and product increment are the three main scrum artifacts.
Product Backlog
Product backlog is a prioritized list of all the activities that the team will be working on during the future sprints which includes features, user stories, enhancements etc. The most important items are listed at the top of the product backlog, so the team understands what to deliver first.
Sprint Backlog
Sprint backlog consists of items selected from the product backlog that the developers need to complete within a sprint. These are the tasks and activities required to deliver value product and achieve the sprint goal.
Product Increment
The increment is the usable end product that will be delivered to the customer at the end of every sprint. It represents customer deliverables that were produced by completing product backlog tasks during a sprint and also includes the increments of all previous sprints.
Scrum Ceremonies
Scrum ceremonies are events and meetings as part of the scrum process in which the scrum master, product owner and development team meet to plan work, discuss work in progress and gather feedback. The major scrum events include Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective.
Sprint Planning
The sprint planning is conducted at the start of the sprint during which the entire scrum team collaborates and discusses the desired high-priority work for the sprint and defines the sprint goal. The maximum length of Sprint Planning is eight hours for a four-week sprint. The product owner will have a prioritized product backlog and discuss over each item with the development team, and together they determine how much work each item will take. After that, the development team will create a sprint prediction that details how much of the product backlog the team can finish. Then the sprint backlog is created by pulling the highest priority stories from the product backlog. Also, the acceptance criteria for each product backlog item will be defined.
Daily Scrum
Daily scrums or stand-ups are quick meetings that last 15 minutes or fewer each day to talk about progress and discuss the roadblocks if any. The purpose of a daily stand-up is to briefly update everyone on team developments. Each team member will answer questions like: What did they complete? What are they currently working on? Are they blocked by anything?
Sprint Review
During the sprint review the outcome of the sprint will be reviewed and the future adaptations also will be discussed. The scrum team will present their work and receive direct feedback from project stakeholders.
Sprint Retrospective
Sprint retrospective is a meeting to discuss what went well and what needs to be improved in the upcoming sprints. This meeting is valuable for the team because they get to know how they can improve their own process, tools and relationships. Sprint retrospective will be conducted at the end of the sprint.
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