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In the previous posts under the Thursday Management Series, we have seen a brief overview of a Scrum, went through some of the commonly used terms in Scrum and discussed in detail the roles of a Product Owner and that of a Scrum Master. I hope these articles have cleared the picture of what a Scrum looks like. Now, let us see in detail the events that take place during a Scrum. This will help in clearly visualizing the complete flow of a Scrum if you have already not worked on one yet.

From the previous posts, we know that a Sprint is the basic unit of development in a Scrum i.e. all the development has to happen within a Sprint. A Sprint is a restricted duration effort which can last from anywhere from one week to a month. The most commonly used Sprint lasts for two weeks.

Sprint Planning

A Sprint Planning Session marks the beginning of every new sprint. This involves –

• Deciding the scope of work to be completed in that sprint.
• Pick up items from Product backlog that can be done in this sprint.
• Create a Sprint Backlog with the items selected in the above step.
• Development team decomposes these items into smaller items that are required to deliver the items from the backlog.
• Development team commits to deliver tasks. This is usually done by voting where each member of the development team deicides what he will work on and gives an estimate.

Daily Scrum Meetings

Once the sprint begins, every single day, the team conducts a Daily Sprint Meeting also called as the Daily Standup or simply the Standup.

• It should be conducted every day and not last more than fifteen minutes.
• Should be conducted at the same time and same place every day irrespective of missing team members.
• Development team forms the major part of the meeting. But, other team members are welcome.
• Every developer informs and shares what he had worked on yesterday, what he will be working on today and if there are any blockers that can prevent him or the team from meeting the sprint goal.
• Any blockers, bugs, issues or risks are marked and noted down by the Scrum Master. And, a person is designated to find the resolution to them.
• The meeting should be quick and not a detailed one.

Sprint Review Sessions

At the completion of a sprint, a Sprint Review Session is conducted by the team which –

• Reviews the tasks that were completed and not completed in the sprint.
• Demonstrates or presents or delivers the completed work to the stakeholders.

Sprint Retrospective Sessions

At the completion of a sprint, a Sprint Retrospective Session is conducted by the team which –

• Is facilitated by the Scrum Master.
• Analyses the past sprint – what went well and what went wrong?
• Identifies the problems faced and suggests scope for improvement for future sprints.

And as per the Scrum, a new sprint begins again!

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