Open minds leads to freedom

Communicating my thoughts on software development

My first experiences on a Scrum team

Posted by rnaufal on December 2nd, 2009

I moved to a new job recently, which applies agile methodologies to manage software teams, particularly Scrum, which was adopted to make an effective management of price, estimates, task and resources. It’s my first experience working with an agile process and I’m no doubt it brings a lot of values for a software project.

The Scrum methodology works something like this:


The team works on iterations (called sprints) during from 2 to 4 weeks (it depends on the project, organization..) on features prioritized by the owner(s) and the Scrum master of the project referring to a list of requirements written on a document (called product backlog). The priority is set according to the business value of the feature. The called owner is a representation of the customer. The Scrum master is the person who removes impediments for the team to keep them focused on the tasks and keeps the focus on the sprint goal. More information you can find here.

Every sprint start we estimate some stories and select the work to be done on the current sprint. At the end of the sprint, we have the review and restrospective of was and wasn’t done.

Above are my opinions about this agile methodology working with for a month:

  1. The team is completely committed to the overall goal of the sprint
  2. Members try to help each other as soon as one poses an impediment
  3. Everyone on the team knows which task the others are doing
  4. Every member helps each other to complete their tasks when they finish their ones
  5. The Scrum Master is always there to remove obstacles, clarify the understanding of the stories and help the estimates
  6. The PO acts with the team to give directions and suggestions for the next stepsand how to interact with other areas on the organization

I’m very motivated with Scrum practices and the way we put it in practice, and I know I have to learn a lot more.

Have you ever worked with Scrum? What do you think about this agile methodology?

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  • http://www.customerservicehelper.com Dan Waldron

    Hello.

    I would like to put a link to your site on my blog roll if you want to do the same for mine. It would be a good way to build up both of our readerships.

    thank you.

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  • Daniel Serodio

    I’m glad to hear you like Scrum, I’d really like to experience a “real” Scrum project.

    What’s the team’s size and experience? Are there “Jr.” developers? Is everyone a development geek (y’know, people who read development blogs, like to chat about development at the happy-hour, etc)?

    IMHO, team size, experience and maturity are the most important aspects for choosing a management process.

    PS.: Not to nitpick, but Scrum is a proper noun, not an acronym, so just the “S” should be capitalized. Writing SCRUM is a newbie giveaway :-)

  • rnaufal

    Thanks for the advice, I’ve updated to properly name the methodology.
    The team size is about 15 people, with varied experiences. We have some development geeks, like me :-) , which write and read blogs. I agree with your points tho choose a management process. And I think applying Scrum makes the team self-managed.

  • http://bpfurtado.livejournal.com/ Bruno

    I’m very fond of Agile Methodologies, unfortunately at FICO we use a RUP customization (which is not that bad in certain projects).
    Tried to use some credits we have here at the company to a Scrum course some months ago, but as we are at the RUP side of the force I could not get an approval :-)
    Nice post, I hope to read more about Scrum in your blog in the future!

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  • http://atitudereflexiva.wordpress.com Rodrigo Martins

    Nice post. I used to like agile methodologies, but take a look at my post and you gonna understand why I think they don’t fit at some companies:

    http://atitudereflexiva.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/cheira-scrum-mas-fede-waterfall/

  • http://backgammonblog.punter2punter.com/ Ariel Cook

    I would appreciate more visual materials, to make your blog more attractive, but your writing style really compensates it. But there is always place for improvement