Agile Scrum Methods at Sfinitor

1. Streamlined project planning & agile backlog development

Ensuring Scrum team coordination, readiness, and information dissemination prior to commencement of project development.

Deliverables encompass:

• Project vision statement
• Stakeholder mapping and engagement plan
• User stories with acceptance criteria
• Definition of Done (DoD)
• User story map
• Prioritized product backlog
• Initial architecture diagrams
• Team structure and resource allocation blueprint
• Configured development environments and toolchains
• Risk register, complete with mitigation strategies

Criteria for acceptance outline precise requirements a software story must fulfill, verifying its suitability for approval by product owners or stakeholders.

A Product Backlog outlines various user stories, feature enhancements, bug resolutions, infrastructure modifications, and other tasks meant for team delivery aimed at achieving a particular objective. These elements are typically expressed as discrete items for development.

A definition of done (DoD) is a checklist that outlines general criteria necessary for all product increments or user stories to be considered complete. The DoD typically includes criteria related to code quality, testing, functional and non-functional requirements, documentation, deployment readiness, and other general requirements. For example:

• Peer-reviewed and team-member-approved code ensures quality and consistency
• Static code analysis reveals no significant or crucial errors in the provided code
• Unit tests must meet a defined minimum coverage threshold (e.g., 80%)
• Tests completed where applicable; all passed successfully
• UAT concluded with resolved feedback, ensuring quality assurance
• Comments optimize code readability and maintainability
• Updates made to user guides and release notes to align with changes in the system
• User story/feature fully satisfies all specified acceptance criteria
• Benchmarks achieved without noticeable deterioration
• All identified security vulnerabilities have now been effectively addressed following the comprehensive review process
• Main branch updated successfully, no conflict detected
• Environment deployment: Staging or Production - Confirmed
• Work item completed; approval granted by product owner/designated appointer

Duration of Medium Project Phases: Typically 2-4 weeks; however, this span isn't set in stone and may fluctuate substantially based on project intricacy, workforce scale, and stakeholder accessibility.

Client stakeholders identified.

• Coordinate product backlog item creation with the Product Owner
• Define business goals, user requirements, and importance level

Product Owner

• Collaborates with key parties, soliciting insights and matching goals to accommodate respective requirements
• Gathers, collaboratively refines requirement specifications with stakeholders
• Establishes consensus on project goals and objectives across team and stakeholders, fostering alignment and focus
• Streamlines backlog construction, maintaining organization and priority
• Enhances risk identification within delivery processes, devising tactics to minimize said risks

Scrum Master

• Streamlines project execution by assembling competent teams and strategically distributing resources
• Assesses & mitigates development risks with strategic approaches

Development team

• Contribute to streamlining the project backlog with time allocations and technical suggestions for implementation
• Offers assessments on task feasibility and complexity levels
• Prepare essential development tools, workspaces, and frameworks for seamless project execution
• Devise strategic, hierarchical blueprint for streamlining project advancement

2. Sprint planning

Sprint Delivery Strategy: Focuses on defining deliverables, outlining execution approaches, and identifying potential risks. The chosen product backlog items, typically represented as user stories, are tasked with specific actions to fulfill each story. These items are prioritized according to their relevance to the project's business objectives, ensuring that the team consistently works on tasks offering maximum contribution towards achieving these goals.

Sprint objectives include defining a clear goal, compiling a sprint backlog with features, repairs, and technical tasks, task segmentation, estimating required effort, and assigning team members to specific duties.

Duration of Sprint Planning Sessions: A full month sprint requires 8 hours, while a two-week sprint calls for approximately 2-4 hours of planning.

Key performance indicators for sprint success include: sprint goal achievement rate, confidence in achieving goals, team's commitment adherence, and velocity data analysis.

Client representatives identified

• Adaptable to last-minute alterations or changes in focus from the Product Owner prior to the sprint planning meeting

Product Owner

• Defines the sprint goal, linking it to the product vision and addressing stakeholder requirements
• Prioritizes Product Backlog for optimal value and urgency: essential high-priority tasks placed first
• Clarifies backlog tasks, ensuring development team comprehends objectives for task completion
• Collaborates with the development team to decide and prioritize which tasks from the backlog are assigned to the sprint, considering team capabilities and priorities

Scrum Master

• Clarifies sprint goals for Product Owner and development team, ensuring they are both attainable and precise
• Assists PO in organizing and prioritizing product backlog elements
• Enhances dialogue for user story and acceptance criterion clarification
• Clarifies potential uncertainties within user stories
• Ensures team commits realistically, considering capacity and past achievements

Development team

• Clarify and analyze product backlog items for precise requirements and acceptance standards comprehension
• Task Effort Estimation Needed
• Evaluate team capabilities, determine feasible deliverables within the sprint timeline, and make a commitment to these tasks
• Assess task interdependencies and recognize risks jeopardizing the sprint progression

3. Sprint execution

Development team focuses on completing tasks from the sprint backlog to achieve predetermined sprint objectives, these objectives stem directly from business goals. The process encompasses coding, testing, design, and any additional tasks required to produce potentially deployable product iterations. Regular communication and collaboration among team members ensures that work remains aligned with targeted business outcomes.

Deliverables: Functional, shippable features adhering to the Definition of Done (DoD).

Sprint Execution commences post-planning meetings, lasting a predetermined span (1-4 weeks), irrespective of completed tasks.

Daily stand-ups and weekly WIP meetings are integral components of our project management strategy. The team convenes 15-minute daily gatherings to align activities, address potential obstacles affecting the realization of business objectives, and map out plans for the ensuing 24 hours. In some instances, we supplement these meetings with weekly Kanban-style WIP sessions lasting between 30 minutes to an hour. These extended meetings are used to assess completed tasks, anticipate forthcoming work, manage risks, and prioritize action items. Controls for potential success: Burndown charts, work item aging.

Client's key parties involved

• Stakeholders typically don't engage in daily operations yet offer input through scheduled interactions. They may offer swift feedback or decisions on matters such as a feature's functionality, ensuring that development remains on course when the team encounters queries about its behavior

Product Owner

• Streamlines User Story Clarification & Acceptance Criteria (On-demand)
• Adjusts priorities during sprint as needed
• Offers swift responses for finished assignments or internal presentations, typically discussed in daily stand-ups

Scrum Master

• Streamlines daily and weekly gatherings
• Monitors team advancement
• Proactively removes hindrances impeding team progress towards sprint objectives

Development team

• Organize for task completion on the sprint backlog
• Plan effective strategies for task distribution and collaborative approaches
• Early identification of potential dependencies or hindrances helps avoid project delays
• Immediately share completed feature presentations within the organization
• Confirm functionalities requiring modifications and prepared for release with Product Owner

4. Sprint review

The review process encompasses evaluating both completed tasks and those in progress. It showcases accomplished work, scrutinizes vital metrics, solicits stakeholder feedback, and modifies the backlog as necessary. This assessment offers a platform for feedback, guaranteeing that deliverables align with business objectives. It serves to determine if the sprint has substantially contributed towards achieving the larger project targets.

Key deliverables:

• Sprint Review Meeting Duration: A one-month sprint review is confined to 4 hours; shorter sprints like bi-weekly sprints usually span 1-2 hours
• Measurable indicators for project success encompass team speed (velocity), sprint satisfaction scores obtained via input from stakeholders and developers, reduced defect density, and minimized escaped defects

Client-side Stakeholders Identified

• Assess sprint output for quality and alignment with objectives
• Assess progress and offer suggestions
• Identify areas for improvement and suggested modifications to optimize final output quality
• Suggest enhancements for upcoming tasks, drawing insights from current data
• Brainstorm prospective enhancements and modifications for the next sprint's priority list

Product Owner

• Verifies increment for compliance with established acceptance standards
• Offers suggestions for required adjustments when criteria aren't met
• Revises product backlog following stakeholder input, reordering tasks and incorporating fresh user stories to meet recognized requirements or enhancements

Scrum Master

• Ensures structured discourse by systematically addressing each agenda item
• Facilitates the Product Owner and development team in readying for meetings, ensuring clear communication of tasks to stakeholders
• Solicits stakeholder input for open communication and constructive feedback
• Ensures clear comprehension for all attendees by resolving any ambiguities regarding the discourse topics

Development team

• Showcase completed project updates to stakeholders, highlighting novel functions and enhancements
• Collaborate on improvements by addressing stakeholder suggestions for change or enhancement discussions

5. Sprint retrospective

Assessment of past sprints serves to optimize future productivity: The team dissects accomplishments, pinpoints hindrances, and determines requisite modifications to the development process for forthcoming sprints. Additionally, they scrutinize the efficiency with which they achieved business targets, allowing them to tailor their processes and tactics better to synergize future sprints with these goals.

Deliverables encompass: enhancing processes & teamwork through insights and actionable suggestions.

Month-long sprint timeline reviews can extend up to 3 hours, contrastingly, two-week sprint assessments range from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours.

Success metrics encompass completion rates of action items, velocity trend analyses, monitoring technical debt levels, and team contentment assessments.

Client representatives involved

• Feedback from customer reviews on aspects like software quality, desired quicker delivery speeds, and software reliability concerns are critical discussions for our team to optimize processes and resolve issues

Product Owner

This gathering primarily concentrates on enhancing team processes and making improvements, excluding product-centric discussions that usually occur during sprint reviews. However, Product Owners are welcome to contribute their insights.

• Identifies and analyzes upcoming challenges for effective strategic decision-making
• Offers comprehensive business and stakeholder viewpoints

Scrum Master

• Guides and facilitates the retrospective, ensuring productivity and inclusivity
• Cultivates a setting that encourages open communication, allowing team members to offer constructive insights on both successes and areas for growth

Development team

• Assess successes, setbacks, and ways to streamline operations for improvement
• Commit to boosting productivity and teamwork in upcoming sprints through focused actions

6. Release Product Increment

Delivers integrated product update to users for an enhanced experience.

Key deliverables:

• A ready-to-deploy product iteration, adhering to the "definition of done," suitable for user release following thorough testing
• Deployment instructions and explanations of new functionalities, bug resolutions, and potential problems
• New release adoption assistance: Training and support materials for users/customers

Client's Representatives Engaged

• Approve and offer final feedback on software/product releases; can also supply final authorization, as needed
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is conducted prior to product release
• Discuss post-release performance and features with the Product Owner
• Offer feedback on post-launch features/changes, focusing on user experience

Product Owner

• Collaborate with stakeholders on deciding the product's feature set for upcoming releases
• Ensures completed increment adheres to acceptance criteria, defined as 'done'
• Bridges communication gap between development team and stakeholders, collecting feedback to align project increments with stakeholder expectations
• Compiles and disseminates release notes, detailing new functionalities or updates to key stakeholders and end-users
• Communicates the value and updates of the product release to all concerned parties clearly

Scrum Master

• Coordinates release tasks effectively
• Organizes required conversations for project launch
• Ensures safe and efficient risk management during software deployment

Development team

• Ready deployment-ready product build, adhering to quality benchmarks
• Finalize testing and integration for seamless deployment
• Offer post-deployment assistance to tackle potential problems

7. Backlog refinement

Focus: Streamlining User Stories for Forthcoming Sprints - A Key Approach: Crafting well-defined, correctly sized, prioritized, and precisely estimated user stories is crucial to alleviate obstacles during sprint planning. This practice allows the team to concentrate on delivering maximum value, minimizes rework, and synchronizes the backlog with evolving project objectives and stakeholder demands.

Deliverables encompass a prioritized project backlog, clearly defined and estimated user stories, refined scope for user stories, broken down into smaller, manageable tasks, identified dependencies among user stories, and an updated risk registry.

Sessions for backlog grooming: continuous with durations of 1-2 hours; held 1-2 times per sprint.

Backlog readiness: a key indicator of success, quantified by the count of prepared backlog items awaiting the next sprint.

Client's Team Involved

• Streamlines task of specifying needs, ranking features, and supplying further details or test cases

Product Owner

• Continually adjusts product backlog according to shifting project priorities and market trends
• Updates backlog by collecting fresh demands and insights from stakeholders, aligning it with evolving needs
• User story sorting prioritizes based on factors like business worth, urgency, reliance, and input from stakeholders
• Clarifies user stories with explicit acceptance criteria, aiding development team understanding

Scrum Master

• Ensures active participation in backlog refinement, fostering collaborative contribution among the team
• Clears up doubts on backlog items, fostering a common comprehension among team members
• Collaborates with Product Owner to clarify and define acceptance criteria effectively
• Streamlines writing effective user stories with clear acceptance criteria
• Facilitates discovery of backlog item relationships, flags potential obstacles for consideration

Development team

• Refine backlog items with the Product Owner for improved clarity and accurate estimation
• Estimate Backlog Items for Accurate Progress Tracking
• Break down intricate user stories into smaller, manageable pieces for efficient task completion