DTU ProjectLab - User contributions [en-gb]

Talk:The Oticon Case: the Spaghetti organisation

2015-09-29T13:36:08Z

S140767:

Anna: I like the case you have chosen, however, it is a bit more related to change management, so it is good that you already have planned to relate it to portfolio/program management by focusing on the lessons to be learned for managing programs/portfolios/projects.

Reviewer 2: DanielKrogh

Formal aspects
* The article follows a clear structure as descried in Article Type 2 formulation.
* There are a few mistakes in the text such as “didn’t” where the correct way is did not. Further a few references was not made where the author had attentions to do so.
''I tried to solve all the mistakes I found. Moreover, I added the missed references''

* The figures illustrates the main points in the article.
* The figures is easy to understand, but I may be biased since I have had change management, which is where the figures are derived.
* All the figures are mentioned in the text.
* The figures has no references.
''I added the references to the figures''

* There is used wiki-references and there is a fine number of references, but could be used some more in the introduction phase.
Content aspects
''I added some more that I considered relevant.''

* The article may well turn to a practitioner, since the specific case can be a good inspiration to an organization, which has organizational problems at any kind.
* The article relates to program management, which is relevant for the topic.
* The length is as expected.
* The flow in the article is well executed and has a logical structure.
* To high degree, I think the quality of the material is acceptable.
* There is made an annotated bibliography.
* The article has no hyperlinks and therefore no references to relevant pages.
''I added hyperlinks to the references that can be found on internet.''

* The author did not make me think there could be a complication with plagiarism.

Personally I have the pleasure to read this article and it is very close be finished in my opinion. If you correct the things I pointed out, I think you have a solid article. ''Thanks :)''

Reviewer 1: s140767

Formal aspects:
* The article’s structure is well defined and meets “case study” requirements.
* For me, the writing style seems confusing due to its slight incoherency, for example in the “Stakeholder management chapter”.
''I changed it a bit in order not to create confusion. But the topic is difficult to simplify..."

* Figures are clear enough, but I would suggest adding some illustrations relating to the change management within the case study.
''I would have liked to, but I dind't have more space. Although interesting, I didn't think it was really necessary to understand the case."

* There are a few grammatical mistakes, for example: interlaced verbs in present/past tense; replace some informal phrases to academic ones (basically, didn’t, figure out...)
''I tried to solve all the mistakes related with interlaced verbs in present/past tense. Also, the ones related with informal phrases.''.

* Some references have to be added as it is suggested in the paper and fixed where the code is incorrect.
''I added the references''

* The wiki-references are used, the graphics integrated correctly with a good size and location.

Content aspects
* The article could be interesting to a practitioner because it provides a clear overview of the innovative organisational changes, its outcome and challenges that may appear.
* It is though more relevant to portfolio management that to program management, because the topic emphasise the changes in process, methods, and technologies usage.
''I think your point is interesting. I thought a lot about that and I concluded that it relates more to Program Management than to Portfolio Management. From my point of my, the fact that the topic emphasise the changes in process, methods and technologies usage doesn't mean it is more related to Portfolio Management. In both Program and Portfolio Management different changes are present.
In the pg. 11 of the Standard for Program Management, various differences between both are presented. My decision was based basically on two factors. First, the management undertaken by Lars Kolind was not about only managing portfolio managing stuff, but about managing both project and program stuff, as well as providing vision and leadership. Second, the Oticon case is an example of successful case because with that new organisation the profit of the company skyrocket and it became competitive again. Therefore, the success is measured by the degree to which the program satisfied the needs of the organisation. Moreover, I think the scope of a portfolio is longer. The Spaghetti organisation lasted less that 15 years. ''

* The length of the article is appropriate and delivers the quality argument.
* Its logical flow could be improved.
''I tried to add some paragraphs to improve the flow.''

* The hyperlinks to the references need to be added
''I added hyperlinks to the references that can be found in internet''

*The article contains an annotated bibliography

Finally, it is a quite nice article that gives me a good overview of radical changes in the case organization. ''Thanks :)''

Reviwer 3: Buurbuur

* Good that the article adhere to the structure of the article type 2
* Think there are a good structure and good red threat
* There are a good link between the text and the figures
* The introduction is written in an engaging style, where I could not wait to read the rest of the case.
* The figures have no references
''I added the references.''

* Overall I think the languages it good
* The length of the article seems appropriate
* For me it is still not clear, why you call it the spaghetti organisation - is it a theory, tool or just a catchy phrase - it is in the title, but you only use the word 2 times in your article.
''I tried to clarify that point in the section "Context"''

* I think that the article link to other relevant pages in APPPM wiki, e.g. the article of stakeholder analysis and matrices, and also the article of leadership styles. This is only based on the title of the article.
* I think your own opinion is clearly differentiated from statements

Overall I think is a awesome article, that gave me a good insight of the case. ''Thanks :)''

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:58:56Z

S140767: /* Annotated bibliography */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product [[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| right| 400px| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]] (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated.
The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.

'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project.
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref><ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref><ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

Talk:SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:53:13Z

S140767:

Mette: Hey, I like your idea. Perhaps you need to be more specific of what exactly it is you want to look at in your article, what you want to study and discuss in your article. Maybe you have a particular aspect to look at, study in your article.
Reviewer 2 :Andkamp
Formal aspects:
*Great interest on the method described on the article, with nice structure and points
*Nice style, with precise sentences, but maybe it needs a little improvement in English as it has some minor mistakes (for example: insure the team working on highest valued features->to ensure that the team is...)
*Nice figures, but better quality and explanation of them would be appreciated
*Better structure as a wiki article would be preferable as there are no inter-wiki or other in text hyperlinks
*Do not know if the author has the right to use those images as there is no reference
*Pictures are nicely placed
*Scrum method seems highly interesting for a practitioner, although no real implementation were presented in the article
Content aspects:
*Firmly related to the topic of project management
*Appropriate length, although points 2.1.1-2.2.5 could be a little more extensive
*More things could be added in the introduction section
*One sided sources and only sites, no proper literature
*Could be connected with other articles through a see also section
*Could add some real examples of implementation of this method
All in all it is a nice article that gave me some understanding of SCRUM method but the lack of bibliography and implementations,as well as the small extent of points 2.1.1-2.2.5 made me a have more questions than answers after reading it.

Answer 2 Andkamp : Thank you for your review. It is very nice to read your feedback that was also very helpful.
*I have added references to the images
*The implementation reflects the rules and conditions on how to use the method.
*The points 2.1.1-2.2.5 were enough in order to fully present the roles of the scrum method, as more detailed explanation was provided in method implementation.
*In my opinion, the introduction need to be brief explanation of the method history and main aspects.
*I do not agree that there was no proper literature. It was just correctly added to the annotated bibliography; references were named.

Reviewer 1 :DanielKrogh

Formal aspects
* Has fine structure with the necessary elements of the type of article
* The sentences is precise and easy to understand
* Missing a reference on the figures and figure numbers. In addition there is missing reference to the actual figures in the text.
* The figure is clear and has a great size
* The article is formatted well and the references are made properly and has the necessary sub headings.
Content aspects
* The topic is interesting and can definitely be used for a practitioner.
* It is fairly related to the topic of project management.
* It could use an example from real life so the reader can have something to relate to.
* I think the number of references is sufficient.
* The article does not contain an annotated bibliography.

The article was nice to read and gave me an insight of SCRUM method. The article is well formulated and clear.

Answer 1 DanielKrogh : Thank you for your good review.
*I have added references and numbers to the figures.
*The annotated bibliography was added.

Reviwer 2 : Buurbuur
* It have a good structure, with good headings and sub headings
* I find the subject very relevant as a project management tool
* I interesting of know who if SCRUM is relevant for all company/business or are there one kind of company where it makes more sense to use than another?
* I find it little confusing that in the end you in the tittle write about advantages, and pitfalls, but don't mention any pitfalls, but only challenges in the section
* However I find the beginning of section about method description confusing and hard to understand
* Make a reference to the pictures in the text, because your pictures are pretty awesome, and can make it much more understandable.
* Good that you substantiate your claims with literature in the advantages and pitfall section

Answer 2 Buurbuur : Thank you for your review. I am glad to hear you had a good impression of my article.
*It is clearly stated in the article where the Scrum method is more relevant and mentioned the disadvantages of implementing it in another companies.
*The pitfalls part was updated. Thank you for noticing that.
*I made test more clear in the beginning of the article.
*I have added references to the pictures.

Talk:SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:52:04Z

S140767:

Mette: Hey, I like your idea. Perhaps you need to be more specific of what exactly it is you want to look at in your article, what you want to study and discuss in your article. Maybe you have a particular aspect to look at, study in your article.
Reviewer 2 :Andkamp
Formal aspects:
*Great interest on the method described on the article, with nice structure and points
*Nice style, with precise sentences, but maybe it needs a little improvement in English as it has some minor mistakes (for example: insure the team working on highest valued features->to ensure that the team is...)
*Nice figures, but better quality and explanation of them would be appreciated
*Better structure as a wiki article would be preferable as there are no inter-wiki or other in text hyperlinks
*Do not know if the author has the right to use those images as there is no reference
*Pictures are nicely placed
*Scrum method seems highly interesting for a practitioner, although no real implementation were presented in the article
Content aspects:
*Firmly related to the topic of project management
*Appropriate length, although points 2.1.1-2.2.5 could be a little more extensive
*More things could be added in the introduction section
*One sided sources and only sites, no proper literature
*Could be connected with other articles through a see also section
*Could add some real examples of implementation of this method
All in all it is a nice article that gave me some understanding of SCRUM method but the lack of bibliography and implementations,as well as the small extent of points 2.1.1-2.2.5 made me a have more questions than answers after reading it.

Answer 2 Andkamp : Thank you for your review. It is very nice to read your feedback that was also very helpful.
*I have added references to the images
*The implementation reflects the rules and conditions on how to use the method.
*The points 2.1.1-2.2.5 were enough in order to fully present the roles of the scrum method, as more detailed explanation was provided in method implementation.
*In my opinion, the introduction need to be brief explanation of the method history and main aspects.
*I do not agree that there was no proper literature. It was just correctly added to the annotated bibliography; references were named.

Reviewer 1 :DanielKrogh

Formal aspects
* Has fine structure with the necessary elements of the type of article
* The sentences is precise and easy to understand
* Missing a reference on the figures and figure numbers. In addition there is missing reference to the actual figures in the text.
* The figure is clear and has a great size
* The article is formatted well and the references are made properly and has the necessary sub headings.
Content aspects
* The topic is interesting and can definitely be used for a practitioner.
* It is fairly related to the topic of project management.
* It could use an example from real life so the reader can have something to relate to.
* I think the number of references is sufficient.
* The article does not contain an annotated bibliography.

The article was nice to read and gave me an insight of SCRUM method. The article is well formulated and clear.

Answer 1 DanielKrogh : Thank you for your good review.
*I have added references and numbers to the figures.
*The annotated bibliography was added.

Reviwer 2 : Buurbuur
* It have a good structure, with good headings and sub headings
* I find the subject very relevant as a project management tool
* I interesting of know who if SCRUM is relevant for all company/business or are there one kind of company where it makes more sense to use than another?
* I find it little confusing that in the end you in the tittle write about advantages, and pitfalls, but don't mention any pitfalls, but only challenges in the section
* However I find the beginning of section about method description confusing and hard to understand
* Make a reference to the pictures in the text, because your pictures are pretty awesome, and can make it much more understandable.
* Good that you substantiate your claims with literature in the advantages and pitfall section

Answer 2 Buurbuur : Thank you for your review. It is very nice to read your feedback that was also very helpful.
*It is clearly stated in the article where the Scrum method is more relevant and mentioned the disadvantages of implementing it in another companies.
*The pitfalls part was updated. Thank you for noticing that.
*I made test more clear in the beginning of the article.
*I have added references to the pictures.

Talk:SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:51:44Z

S140767:

Mette: Hey, I like your idea. Perhaps you need to be more specific of what exactly it is you want to look at in your article, what you want to study and discuss in your article. Maybe you have a particular aspect to look at, study in your article.
Reviewer 2 :Andkamp
Formal aspects:
*Great interest on the method described on the article, with nice structure and points
*Nice style, with precise sentences, but maybe it needs a little improvement in English as it has some minor mistakes (for example: insure the team working on highest valued features->to ensure that the team is...)
*Nice figures, but better quality and explanation of them would be appreciated
*Better structure as a wiki article would be preferable as there are no inter-wiki or other in text hyperlinks
*Do not know if the author has the right to use those images as there is no reference
*Pictures are nicely placed
*Scrum method seems highly interesting for a practitioner, although no real implementation were presented in the article
Content aspects:
*Firmly related to the topic of project management
*Appropriate length, although points 2.1.1-2.2.5 could be a little more extensive
*More things could be added in the introduction section
*One sided sources and only sites, no proper literature
*Could be connected with other articles through a see also section
*Could add some real examples of implementation of this method
All in all it is a nice article that gave me some understanding of SCRUM method but the lack of bibliography and implementations,as well as the small extent of points 2.1.1-2.2.5 made me a have more questions than answers after reading it.

Answer 2 Andkamp : Thank you for your review. It is very nice to read your feedback that was also very helpful.
*I have added references to the images
*The implementation reflects the rules and conditions on how to use the method.
*The points 2.1.1-2.2.5 were enough in order to fully present the roles of the scrum method, as more detailed explanation was provided in method implementation.
*In my opinion, the introduction need to be brief explanation of the method history and main aspects.
*I do not agree that there was no proper literature. It was just correctly added to the annotated bibliography; references were named.

Reviewer 1 :DanielKrogh

Formal aspects
* Has fine structure with the necessary elements of the type of article
* The sentences is precise and easy to understand
* Missing a reference on the figures and figure numbers. In addition there is missing reference to the actual figures in the text.
* The figure is clear and has a great size
* The article is formatted well and the references are made properly and has the necessary sub headings.
Content aspects
* The topic is interesting and can definitely be used for a practitioner.
* It is fairly related to the topic of project management.
* It could use an example from real life so the reader can have something to relate to.
* I think the number of references is sufficient.
* The article does not contain an annotated bibliography.

The article was nice to read and gave me an insight of SCRUM method. The article is well formulated and clear.

Answer 1 DanielKrogh : Thank you for your good review.
*I have added references and numbers to the figures.
*The annotated bibliography was added.

Reviwer 2 : Buurbuur
* It have a good structure, with good headings and sub headings
* I find the subject very relevant as a project management tool
* I interesting of know who if SCRUM is relevant for all company/business or are there one kind of company where it makes more sense to use than another?
* I find it little confusing that in the end you in the tittle write about advantages, and pitfalls, but don't mention any pitfalls, but only challenges in the section
* However I find the beginning of section about method description confusing and hard to understand
* Make a reference to the pictures in the text, because your pictures are pretty awesome, and can make it much more understandable.
* Good that you substantiate your claims with literature in the advantages and pitfall section

Answer 2 Buurbuur : Thank you for your review. It is very nice to read your feedback that was also very helpful.
*It is clearly stated in the article where the Scrum method is more relevant and mentioned the disadvantages of implementing it in another companies.
*The pitfalls part was updated. Thank you for noticing that.
*I made test more clear in the beginning of the article.
*I have added references to the pictures.

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:06:53Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product [[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| right| 400px| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]] (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated.
The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.

'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project.
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref><ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref><ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:06:31Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. [[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| right| 400px| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.

'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project.
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref><ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref><ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:05:50Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| right| 400px| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project.
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref><ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref><ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:05:41Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| right| 200px| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project.
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref><ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref><ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:05:22Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| right| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project.
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref><ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref><ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:04:42Z

S140767: /* Advantages and pitfalls */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project.
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref><ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref><ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:04:07Z

S140767: /* Advantages and pitfalls */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project.
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref>
<ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:03:46Z

S140767: /* Advantages and pitfalls */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project. <ref>
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.<ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref>
<ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T23:02:57Z

S140767: /* Advantages and pitfalls */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, processes, as well as common understanding of what to be accomplished through the entire organization.
The '''advantages''' of adopting and implementing Scrum methodology of project management are:

*Development of team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.
*The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to be delivered to the customer in a shorter time. Thus, customer satisfaction and high quality to be emphasized.
*In contrast with the waterfall project management methodology, scrum process is characterised with absence of exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project. <ref>
*All functionalities are tested during the sprint due to a continuous review and changes’ adoption that takes place during during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback from the customer that ensure in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.
The aforementioned advantages may finally imply cost reduction within the organization and quality increase of the deliverables.''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable
approach to any project</ref>

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.
<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref>
<ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T22:33:27Z

S140767: /* Conclusion */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable
approach to any project</ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.
<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref>
<ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally, especially on the method adapting stage.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T22:30:48Z

S140767: /* Conclusion */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable
approach to any project</ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.
<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref>
<ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. It facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally.

==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T22:27:43Z

S140767: /* Advantages and pitfalls */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable
approach to any project</ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.
<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' Five Common Pitfalls When Organizations Neglect Agile Values</ref>
<ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T22:24:10Z

S140767: /* Advantages and pitfalls */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable
approach to any project</ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity and growing popularity of the method, there are some '''pitfalls''' while using the scrum methodology.

*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer during one sprint may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. Due to that, the team might face uncertainties in how the final product should look like and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes. Thus, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements.
*Daily meetings sometimes can be a problem in companies where teams are geographically dispersed. Setting a different time which will work for everyone could be inconvenient for both Team members and management. Even though the meeting takes place within one geographical area, they often overshoots 15 minutes due to someone joining the meeting late, or due to the long team's reporting talks to the Scrum Master. That can be considered as wasting time instead of using it to develop the product and use constant feedback on it.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be problematic for companies who want to adopt and implement it. Moving from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations is very, very hard. And very easy to fail at. MOreover, the transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts and poor outcome.
*When the company adopting the scrum methodology ignores the philosophical principles of scrum, the organization may face the consequences of losing high productivity, great software quality, and happy customers.
<ref> ''http://www.agileconnection.com/article/five-common-pitfalls-when-organizations-neglect-agile-values?page=0%2C0'' </ref>
<ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T20:51:01Z

S140767: /* Advantages and pitfalls */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable
approach to any project</ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' Challenges and Opportunities in Agile/Scrum</ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T20:49:50Z

S140767: /* Advantages and pitfalls */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' AGILE SCRUM: the flexible and adaptable
approach to any project</ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T20:48:23Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' The Scrum Guide</ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T20:47:38Z

S140767: /* Method description */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18'' Adaptive Project Management Using Scrum</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T20:46:57Z

S140767: /* Method description */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=18''</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T20:27:47Z

S140767: /* Introduction */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' Manifesto for Agile Software Development</ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T20:26:44Z

S140767: /* Introduction */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' The Roots of Scrum</ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T20:22:29Z

S140767: /* Annotated bibliography */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

[http://proquestcombo.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.findit.dtu.dk/book/software-engineering-and-development/agile-development/9780321660534/introduction/pref05#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODAzMjE2NjA1MzQlMkZwYXJ0MDMmcXVlcnk9 Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009)]: The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:25:02Z

S140767: /* Method description */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:24:02Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref>Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="product">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:23:12Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref>Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:21:05Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref>Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref>Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:20:51Z

S140767: /* Daily Scrum */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref>Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:18:18Z

S140767: /* Daily Scrum */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref>Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.<ref>Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:16:41Z

S140767: /* Method description */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref> <ref>Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010)</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:15:13Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:14:21Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref> <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:12:51Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:11:19Z

S140767: /* Method implementation */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009) </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:10:39Z

S140767: /* Method implementation */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.<ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T19:07:17Z

S140767: /* Annotated bibliography */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

Succeeding with Agile. Mike Cohn (2009): The main objectives of the book is both - the introduction of the scrum for the beginners and implementing improvements into teamwork, test-driven development, quality and the management process itself.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T15:06:34Z

S140767: /* Annotated bibliography */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges, how to avoid them, explains the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T14:57:26Z

S140767: /* Annotated bibliography */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Management with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010): This book focuses on the role of the product owner and the challenges he/she faces in agile project management with Scrum. The book presents examples on how to take an advantage of emerging requirements, receive customer feedback in time, and how to ensure close collaboration within the development team. It facilitates the practitioner to fully understand possible challenges and how to avoid them, and the structure and key elements within Scrum product management.

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T14:42:11Z

S140767: /* Annotated bibliography */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional

==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T13:01:53Z

S140767: /* Method implementation */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. Following the "To Do" list, team starts developing the product features. The entire sprint is supplemented with daily meetings in order to remove impediments appeared during the daily work, and controlled by the retrospective meeting by the end of the sprint. The performance is evaluated, problems and improvements are identified. Those will serve as the basis for the Sprint Planning Meeting that takes place before the new sprint begin, and ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to improve product and accomplish the new Sprint goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' applied in scrum methodology as visual tool aiming manually monitor the process. It is usually located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint to be registered using relevant software as part of the optimization of the project management process, however the board is used and continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T11:42:12Z

S140767: /* Method implementation */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. The Sprint Planning Meeting ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to develop a product and accomplish the Sprint Goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' used in scrum, is visual tool used to manually monitor the process. It is located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint need to be registered using relevant software, however the board is continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T11:41:06Z

S140767: /* Method implementation */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire organization.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, and is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. The Sprint Planning Meeting ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to develop a product and accomplish the Sprint Goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' used in scrum, is visual tool used to manually monitor the process. It is located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint need to be registered using relevant software, however the board is continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T11:40:21Z

S140767: /* Method implementation */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple and highly effective way to manage software development projects. Software development projects are characterized with rapid change and emerging requirements. Due to that, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Moreover, its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts on the way to project delivery.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire team.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, and is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. The Sprint Planning Meeting ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to develop a product and accomplish the Sprint Goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' used in scrum, is visual tool used to manually monitor the process. It is located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint need to be registered using relevant software, however the board is continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T11:35:06Z

S140767: /* Introduction */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple way to manage software development projects more effectively. Software development projects characterize with rapid change and emerging requirements. Therefore, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire team.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, and is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. The Sprint Planning Meeting ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to develop a product and accomplish the Sprint Goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' used in scrum, is visual tool used to manually monitor the process. It is located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint need to be registered using relevant software, however the board is continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T11:25:51Z

S140767:

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org/principles: Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple way to manage software development projects more effectively. Software development projects characterize with rapid change and emerging requirements. Therefore, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire team.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, and is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. The Sprint Planning Meeting ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to develop a product and accomplish the Sprint Goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' used in scrum, is visual tool used to manually monitor the process. It is located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint need to be registered using relevant software, however the board is continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.
==Annotated bibliography ==
==References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T11:24:23Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org/principles: Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a ''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a ''red line'', ''X axis'' displays working days, ''Y axis'' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple way to manage software development projects more effectively. Software development projects characterize with rapid change and emerging requirements. Therefore, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire team.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, and is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. The Sprint Planning Meeting ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to develop a product and accomplish the Sprint Goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' used in scrum, is visual tool used to manually monitor the process. It is located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint need to be registered using relevant software, however the board is continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.

== References ==
<references />

SCRUM Method

2015-09-28T11:23:42Z

S140767: /* Artifacts */

== Introduction ==
SCRUM is a one of the most used agile methodologies focusing on organizing and project management. The method’s foundation inheres the commercial product development work in 1986 elaborated by Hirotaka Takaeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and officially defined in a paper written by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in 1995. The Agile Manifesto for software development published 1991 broadened usage of the technique aiming to continuous development of valuable software. <ref> ''http://www.scruminc.com/takeuchi-and-nonaka-roots-of-scrum'' </ref>

The key aspects addressed in the [http://agilemanifesto.org/principles: Agile Manifesto] are:

*Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
*Working software over comprehensive documentation
*Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
*Responding to change over following the plan <ref> ''http://agilemanifesto.org'' </ref>

SCRUM can be implemented to different projects aligning continuous requirements’ changes and strict deadlines. The aim of Scrum is to enhance teamwork, provide transparency, and optimize complexity of the projects and unpredictability of software development.

== Method description ==
'''SCRUM''' is an iterative process, where iterations, called Sprint, normally lasts from two to four weeks. [[File:Scrum_Process.jpg| thumb| 400px| '''Figure 1:''' [https://www.norex.net/news/thescrumapproachjune2011 Illustrates Scrum Process]]] The Sprint’s functionality called User Stories serves as a priority measure in Product Backlog. The Product Owner, who links the customers’ needs and product development process, controls the Product Backlog.

The most prioritized tasks represent the goal of the project and shall be divided into smaller tasks during the first Sprint Planning meeting. Thereafter, continuous Daily-Scrum meetings are to be hold within the project group. They are supported by the Scrum Board, which is the important visual tool to plan and control the progress of the Sprint Backlog. The Daily-Scrum meetings are under control of the Scrum Master.

Once the task from a Sprint Backlog is accomplished, its status needs to be updated on the Scrum Board, where all the updated information is stored in a Burndown Chart.

At the end of each Sprint, the Product Owner organizes the meeting called Sprint Review, which demonstrate the executable version of the project and value for the customer. The Retrospective Meeting of the accomplished Sprint takes place in order to analyze the progress of the accomplished project along with successfully achieved changes and pitfalls faced during the sprint. Moreover, it facilitates the implementation of improvements to the next Sprint .
The process continues all the way around developing Sprint by Sprint, until the project is fully accomplished. <ref>''https://www.scrumalliance.org''</ref>

The key elements of SCRUM technique are roles, events, artifacts and rules that facilitate the rational decision-making process in order deliver the business values.

=== Roles ===
There are three roles in SCRUM method: Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM), and Team, which supported by the customers and management involvement.
[[File:Scrum roles.png| thumb| 200px| '''Figure 2:''' [http://www.noogony.com/ Illustrates Scrum Roles]]]
====Product Owner ====
Product Owner (PO) is a person who has responsibility to continuously provide a clear communication through the Team along the vision and priorities, and ensure the link between team members, customers, and stakeholders.
The Product Owner must understand the work, maintain the Product Backlog, and insure the team working on highest valued features.
====Scrum Master ====
Scrum Master (SM) represents the role as facilitator for the PO and the team. The main responsibilities are to ensure productive work of team members and process improvement. During the project development process, Scrum Master ought to remove obstacles, and organize daily meetings called Daily Scrum. As a facilitator to PO, SM is able to find the way to maximize the return of investment (ROI) for the team.
====Scrum Team ====
Scrum Team consists of developers who work in order to achieve an execution of Backlog items during each Sprint and form the final product. The team usually consists of 7-9 members. Team members are self organized and can decide how to develop a new functionality. Moreover, Scrum team’s responsibilities include reviewing Backlog along with providing recommendations towards possible changes to the project, and estimating user stories.
====Customers ====
Customers often play an important role participating in Sprints related to the Backlog, having a close dialog with the team members and management in order to reconcile requirements for the functionalities and set expectations.
====Management ====
Management ensures the organization’s target values and requirements to be achieved. It is management who chooses the Product Owner, monitors the progress, and optimizes Backlog in cooperation with Scrum Master.

=== Events ===
Sprint is an event that lasts from one week to maximum of one month. It includes Release Planning meeting, Spring Planning meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meeting.
==== Release planning meeting ====
During the release planning meeting the goal and the main objectives for the team members and for the whole organization needs to be set and clarified.
==== Sprint Planning meeting ====
Sprint Planning meeting is organized to plan the next Sprint. Specifically, during the first part of the meeting, the plan of action should be set. The decision about product development with the new functionality is taken during the second part of the meeting.
==== Sprint Review ====
During the Sprint Review meeting, the achieved results for the relevant sprint shall be evaluated in collaboration with customer or Product Owner, or both.
==== Sprint Retrospective ====
Sprint Retrospective meeting aims to evaluate performance of the previous sprint, namely team members, processes and tools. The meeting follows the Sprint Review, and is a prior to the next Sprint Planning meeting.
The results of the Sprint Retrospective meeting are the identified process improvements that will be applied in the next Sprint
==== Daily Scrum ====
Daily Scrum focuses on what was discussed on the last meeting, what needs to be analyzed on the next meting, and which impediments the scrum team faces and how to cope with them. The meeting lasts in 15 minutes and aims betters communication within the team, and fast decision-making.
=== Artifacts ===
'''Product Backlog''' is a list of all tasks needed to develop a product including the requirements for the product (features, functions, technologies, and improvements) development and change. In other words, it is a To-Do list for the entire project, where the User Stories are estimated. The list is dynamic and changes along with customer’s requirements for the product. The responsible body for the Product Backlog is a Product Owner, who ensures that the changes in business requirements, market conditions, or technology are reflected and stored in a list. The latter incorporates items information about description, order, estimate, and value.
[[File:Sprint Burndown Chart.png| thumb| '''Figure 3:''' [http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/02/evaluating-jira-agile-scrum-masters/ Sprint Burndown Chart.]Note, the guideline for the progress assuming that all tasks will be completed within the sprint is a '''grey line'', the remaining effort on daily basis is a '''red line''', '''X axis''' displays working days, '''Y axis''' displays Story Points]]
'''Release Burndown Chart''' – is a graphical representation of the planned and remaining part of the project. It reflects the monitoring of the process and executed by the Product Owner in order to assess how the project aligns with the goal and desired time.

'''Sprint Backlog''' is a prioritized list of tasks chosen from the Product Backlog and is a starting point of each sprint. Scrum development team, Scrum Master and Product Owner estimate User Stories for each item in each sprint. Sprint Backlog is also a plan containing necessary steps and changes in order to deliver the functionality from “To-Do” status to “Done” in the end of the sprint.

'''Sprint Burndown Chart''' is a graph representing the remaining amount of work in a sprint backlog, team performance, and forecast when the team will achieve the goal of the sprint.<ref> ''http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html'' </ref>

== Method implementation ==
'''Scrum''' agile methodology is considered as a simple way to manage software development projects more effectively. Software development projects characterize with rapid change and emerging requirements. Therefore, the agile scrum methodology is highly applicable here with its inspecting and adapting ability. Its rapid iterative cycles (sprints) reveal better collaboration and combined efforts.

: ''Managers, Product Owner and Scrum Master have to remember that the principles of agile development and scrum rules are very important in order to achieve this goal. It is their work to clarify them through the entire team.''

Once the Product backlog is prioritized, and is visible, and clear to the scrum team, the appropriate sprint length is established. The Sprint Planning Meeting ends with clear understanding by the Development Team on how to develop a product and accomplish the Sprint Goal.

The '''Scrum Board''' used in scrum, is visual tool used to manually monitor the process. It is located near the Product Owner and shows post-it notes for the ordered Product Backlog list, Sprint Backlog list, Sprints and estimated User Stories for each functionality. The changes within the sprint need to be registered using relevant software, however the board is continuously updated along with new alterations. This is done in order to ensure that the Sprint Meeting is transparent and organized for the entire team. The use of the board makes meetings more dynamic, provide better cooperation, and continuously focuses on the main objectives.

With regard to the Scrum Board, tasks can be moved from the Backlog List to the position, marked “To-Do list”, “In process”, or “Done”. The Scrum Master records all changes during the Sprint, resolves all problems that the team faces during the phase, and improves productivity .
[[File:Sprint Report.png| thumb| 500px| '''Figure 4:''' [https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH062/Viewing+the+Sprint+Report Sprint Report]]]
Daily Scrum meetings support the Sprint on the daily basis in order to improve communication, identify impediments, improve fast decision-making, and team members’ level of knowledge.

The reporting is crucial in scrum process. Keeping the management teams well informed ensures that projects stay on track for deadlines, budgets, and features.
During the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner tells to the meeting participants what items/tasks have been “Done” and what are the remaining tasks. They discuss the reasons that some tasks have not been completed, and how to improve the process in the next sprint.

The '''Sprint Report''' is an essential document for the Sprint Retrospective meeting, because it generates the information from the Sprint performance and let the scrum team understand the work completed or pushed back to the backlog in each sprint. Moreover, it consists of only those estimations for tasks that recorded at the time sprint started. Tasks added to the sprint after the start date used to be marked with an asterisk. In order to view the Story Points, the Burndown Chart can be shown to the team. Based on the sprint report and Burndown Chart, Product Owner explains the total work remaining and the forecast of achieving the sprint goal.

== Advantages and pitfalls ==
The '''advantages''' of adopting Scrum methodology for project management develop team centric approach to software development rather that individual approach. Performance and productivity reflects the team’s collective efforts.

The incremental delivery of the project developed during each Sprint enable some functionality to be ready to the customer in a shorter time. The customers are satisfied because each completed backlog represents a new release of a product. Moreover, the process can be done without exhausting, costly documentation covering all aspects of a software project comparing with for example the waterfall project management methodology . <ref> ''https://www.exin.com/assets/exin/frameworks/124/whitepaper/Flyer-Agile-Scrum-EN.pdf'' </ref>

All functionalities are tested during the sprint, because a continuous review and changes’ adoption of the process takes place during each sprint. Frequent testing enables receiving a prompt feedback. This provides in-time correction of uncovered mistakes.

Scrum project management methodology provides transparency of the requirements, process, and common understanding of what needed to be accomplished through the entire organization . This helps to reduce costs and increase quality for the deliverables.

Despite the simplicity of the method, there are some '''challenges''' while using the scrum methodology.
*The frequent changes in the requirements set by the customer may bring a lot of confusion to the team members. During the Scrum planning meeting the clear functionalities are defined for the product development. Moreover, the approximate deadlines are identified. Nevertheless, when the team faces uncertainties and narrow deadline due to upcoming changes, they might fail or delay in developing the features, or deliver the functionalities that do not match newly established requirements. Therefore, the Scrum Master must be aware of this condition and ensure the right questions will be ask during the Daily Scrum. Scrum Master have to ensure that the team members working in the right direction. In addition, it could be wisely to allocate a customer inside the company, and ensure frequent communication.
*Another difficulty in managing scrum projects appears when customers do not understand the agile methodology and/or have difficulties with accepting the Scrum. In order to cope with this issue, an effective training and coaching have to be introduced.
*Scrum agile methodology can also be challenging for companies who want to adopt and implement it. The transit from individual contribution to the teamwork implies group conflicts due to different cultural background, and expertise. <ref> ''https://communities.bmc.com/groups/india-user-group/blog/2012/08/05/challenges-and-opportunities-in-agilescrum'' </ref> <ref name="agile">Agile Product Manageement with Scrum. Roman Pichler. (2010). Addison-Wesley Professional </ref>

==Conclusion ==
Scrum method is becoming more popular methodology for companies with different project context. The practice has shown that it is though an optimal framework for software development projects providing its adaptability, transparency, and quality. It offers effective open-communication, social integration, control, and coordination mechanisms that are the key aspects for agile project management. Despite its advantages and simplicity, Scrum method may appear hard to structure internally and align values externally. The components and implementation technique of Scrum aim to cope with complexity and risk within an organization. Finally, it facilitates the rational decision-making process in order deliver business values.

== References ==
<references />