SCRUM Introduction

Scrum is an empirical Agile project management framework used to deliver increments of high value to the customer iteratively. Scrum relies on self organizing, empowered teams to deliver the product increments. It also relies on a customer, or Product Owner, to provide a team with a list of desired features using business value as the priority mechanism.

A Scrum is a mechanism in the sport of rugby for getting an out-of-play ball back into play. The term was adopted in 1987 by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi to describe hyper-productive development. Jeff Sutherland developed the Scrum process in 1993 while working at the Easel Corporation and Ken Schwaber formalized the process in the first published paper on Scrum at OOPSLA 1995.

Scrum defines roles, artifacts and meetings that provide a framework for the high value increments to be developed.

Roles

There are three roles in a Scrum project:

• The Product Owner (or customer) owns the product and prioritizes the list of desired features.
• The ScrumMaster owns the process and ensures that teams remain unhindered and productive.
• The cross-functional Team self organize to build the product.
  

Artifacts

Scrum defines three artifacts that the roles interact with during the life of the project:

• The Product Backlog is a prioritized list of desired features.
• The Sprint Backlog is a prioritized list of tasks that the team have identified for the current Sprint (iteration).
• The Increment of Product Functionality which is delivered at the end of each Sprint.
  

Meetings

There are four meetings, or collaboration points, that are used during each Sprint:

• Sprint Planning allows the team to elect what work they will be taking on for the Sprint.
• The Daily Scrum allows the team to review the status of the Sprint and adapt to discoveries.
• The Sprint Review gives the Team an opportunity to show the Product Owner the increment of product functionality.
• The Sprint Retrospective allows the team to provide feedback and adapt the process.