Questions tagged [scrum]

For questions about using or implementing the Scrum framework.

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Daily Stand up Three Question Format a sign of team immaturity?

I've come to believe that, like the daily scrum, the 3 questions are a sign of team capability immaturity. I'm about to decree to all my teams that we will be doing away with the three questions ...
El Toro Bauldo's user avatar
11 votes
5 answers
925 views

What to do with Business Analysts in a Scrum environment?

In a company, they have decided to adopt scrum about a year ago, and they still have BAs (Business Analysts), who are separated from the Scrum teams. How it works is: The BA will get the specs for ...
dqm's user avatar
  • 1,368
10 votes
2 answers
1k views

How does a Project Manager's job change when transitioning from waterfall to Agile?

When adopting Agile and moving away from waterfall what specifically changes in the day-to-day job duties of a PM? I'm interested especially in hearing from PMs who have made (or are in the process of ...
Bob Gower's user avatar
  • 193
10 votes
3 answers
348 views

Dealing with large specifications with Scrum

From time to time, our product need to cope with new network protocols that comes in large specification files (~100+ pages). Usually, gathering the requirements from the specification can't be done ...
eMgz's user avatar
  • 1,219
10 votes
6 answers
5k views

Scrum daily - Ask the 3 questions per developer or go by tickets?

We are a small team of around 5 developers. We're using a ticketmanagement-system that has a virtual Scrumboard. On the Scrumboard are several columns. The items on the columns are sorted by priority: ...
hamena314's user avatar
  • 498
10 votes
1 answer
984 views

How to improve the team-work?

Recently our team was informed that they will be joined to another team. We work in a big system and there are several subsystems that demand specific competencies, currently we have: Team-A --> ...
Johnny's user avatar
  • 2,141
10 votes
6 answers
6k views

Advice for a Non-Technical Newbie Scrum Master

I have recently joined a fantastic company which prides itself on its Agile philosophy and work ethic. I am a VERY junior Project Manager, and the more I learn about Scrum and Agile, the more I want ...
Kirsten Clacey's user avatar
9 votes
4 answers
2k views

How does specialization fit into Scrum?

One of the rules of the Scrum states the team should self organize and be in control of the technical part of the project. It is rather easy when Product Owners are delivering tasks which every member ...
Bartosz Rakowski's user avatar
9 votes
5 answers
178 views

When all "Must Have" (re: MoSCoW) stories have been completed, should the Scrum Master ask the Product Owner if the project is over after each sprint?

I see the value in being proactive, rather than waiting for budget or time constraints to catch up on the project. On the other hand, I don't think every project should be a race to arrive under-...
David's user avatar
  • 433
9 votes
4 answers
874 views

What would be the pressure for developers in scrum?

In a typical non-Scrum environment, a Project (or, Product, maybe) Manager will be the one responsible for project/product success, and so assigns tasks to the members, make sure it gets completed. ...
J. Doe's user avatar
  • 193
9 votes
3 answers
12k views

How to estimate a project budget using story points?

Current workflow in our company: I create Given/When/Then scenarios or User stories Developers estimate Scenarios/User stories in hours, by giving minimum and maximum amount of time for 1 scenario/...
Ruslan Doronichev's user avatar
9 votes
4 answers
2k views

Methods to improve daily scrum / standup

My Team's Daily Scrum needs improvement and I was wondering if anyone has a workshop idea/method on how to improve. The current issues that my team face are: They tend to go off topic, instead of ...
TheLearner's user avatar
  • 2,529
9 votes
5 answers
4k views

Is the 15-minute daily stand-up meeting mandatory for a successful Scrum project?

Is the Daily Scrum meeting mandatory for a successful Scrum project? Is it possible to replace it with a one hour meeting once or twice a week? I am asking this because I am finding it difficult to ...
Rami Sedhom's user avatar
9 votes
4 answers
2k views

How is refinement done in Scrum?

Scrum says: Product Backlog items that can be Done by the Scrum Team within one Sprint are deemed ready for selection in a Sprint Planning event. They usually acquire this degree of transparency ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
8 votes
2 answers
6k views

Plan several sprints at once

We are working on a project that will be completed over several months therefore will take several sprints. Our product owner has pushed us into planning several sprints in one go. We have only given ...
DasDave's user avatar
  • 183
8 votes
6 answers
366 views

QA-Challenged Team - How to Improve?

Both in my Scrum Team and in the IT Department as a whole, we do not have a single hired QA-personnel. In fact, it is mandated by upper management that we cannot hire one (and I do not think this ...
Sarov's user avatar
  • 14.8k
8 votes
3 answers
532 views

As a Scrum Master, how to handle management expectations on delivering story points?

Problem - I've been appointed as a Scrum Master to a new team and senior management (CTO) expectation is that our team should deliver more than the SP capacity we can currently realistically deliver. ...
Ruan's user avatar
  • 784
8 votes
3 answers
6k views

Who decides the length of a sprint?

As per title, who is in charge of the decision? I am tempted to say that the dev team should chose it, but then again there are considerations about stakeholders to be made and management in general (...
nourdine's user avatar
  • 511
8 votes
3 answers
476 views

Is it possible to be agile with a highly technical project?

I'm working on a small (4-6) team on a project that involves creating a machine learning model to predict the outcome of sports matches real-time. This also involves scraping the data and storing it ...
Tom Willards's user avatar
8 votes
4 answers
4k views

what should be part of Sprint 0?

This is our first Agile project and we plan our Sprint 0 to consist of : Release Content Planning : Defining EPICs/MMFs Product Backlog Product Backlog Grooming : Breakup of EPICs into stories (as ...
Roop's user avatar
  • 403
8 votes
2 answers
2k views

Agile Best Practice for External Blocking Issue

Our company is trying to adopt a more rigorous Agile methodology (including Sprints and Scrums and all that fun stuff. We even got a JIRA subscription!), and we've run into a couple issues. The ...
Cody S's user avatar
  • 183
8 votes
5 answers
2k views

Who is the owner of the increment in Scrum?

Of the 3 artifacts (product backlog, sprint backlog and increment), I am not too sure about the ownership of the Increment. Can you point me to a resource where it clearly states who the owner is? I ...
nourdine's user avatar
  • 511
8 votes
3 answers
2k views

Why are Story Points of a story not equivalent to days/hours in estimation. In Scrum [Agile]

I'm currently working in a team with new to agile methodology programmers and few old school peeps. They seem to always, in planning meetings give hours/day estimates for a story. It really pisses me ...
user avatar
8 votes
6 answers
952 views

Does a business analyst fit into the Scrum framework?

Question Let's consider a software development project made for an external customer. The development company (the vendor) has the usual positions and specialists: developers, testers, business ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
8 votes
2 answers
335 views

Changing Processes - is it better to do it gradually or just change?

Based off of my previous question Can Scrum be suited to smaller development teams?, we have now picked out the elements of Scrum that would best fit our team and business, however, my Boss has ...
LiamGu's user avatar
  • 463
7 votes
3 answers
3k views

What solutions exist for ensuring Sprint continuity over holiday or extremely turbulent periods?

This question is posed as a genuine attempt to seek a best answer but also hopefully a wider-thought piece. How do more experienced agile teams (especially Scrum) handle a sprint being interrupted by ...
Venture2099's user avatar
  • 4,075
7 votes
8 answers
2k views

The development teams can't deliver successful sprints

We have 2 (50% distributed) scrum teams, that have been doing scrum for just over a year. Since almost the whole time, the teams' painful point is environments instability, from all perspectives: ...
dqm's user avatar
  • 1,368
7 votes
6 answers
1k views

How to repay technical debt still delivering features?

The picture I saw far too many times over my career. A team of developers in a company driven by non-technical management, practising scrum, severely pressured to deliver points and features by ...
G33K's user avatar
  • 519
7 votes
4 answers
4k views

How to write a summary for a user story?

I'm working hard on user stories and it is paying off, but something itches. We use Jira, but the problem is that from above the backlog seems clumsy. We need to write summary for user story so that ...
Siim Haas's user avatar
  • 348
7 votes
4 answers
2k views

Should a designer or a devops be a member of a Scrum team?

Usually such specialists as a designer or a devops-engineer are not permanently required (as opposed to developers and QA-engineers) to perform development activities (they are engaged in some tasks ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
7 votes
2 answers
1k views

How shall developers clarify PBI during its implementation?

Should developers have direct communication with stakeholders during Product Backlog Items implementation for their clarification. Or should all communication go through Product Owner? On the Scrum ...
Sergey Kudryavtsev's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
901 views

Improving your Scrum Sprint!

I know there are lots of talks and articles on agile and scrum. But I would like to know how to improve your scrum sprint for a new and small team. We are looking for a sprint length of 3 weeks. I ...
Abdel Raoof Olakara's user avatar
7 votes
9 answers
487 views

Resources for Scrum [closed]

I'm looking for resources for Scrum. Online resources would be particulary suited, but I'm ready to consider books. There is much material available, and I have to say it's hard to choose the good ...
Alexis Dufrenoy's user avatar
7 votes
6 answers
4k views

Is Team member sharing possible in Scrum during a Sprint?

During the current Sprint, my Team is doing mostly front-end tasks, I don't have any tasks, because I do back-end. My Scrum Master says that I have to pick up tasks from another Team. Question: Is ...
Wow's user avatar
  • 173
7 votes
4 answers
2k views

Must the Scrum Master be a software developer?

From the job description of a Scrum Master, it seems to me that soft skills, such as the ability to coach and manage others, is much more important than technical skills. However I wonder if it's ...
lgaleazzi's user avatar
  • 359
7 votes
4 answers
1k views

What do Scrum Masters do all day?

So this is a question that many people have answered on their blogs and I think one person even wrote a mini book a answering this question. However, I wasn't able to relate to them so I am hoping to ...
Muhammad's user avatar
  • 854
7 votes
4 answers
1k views

UI in scrum - what's the silver bullet?

I'm a certified scrum master and, by trade, a UI/UX/Front end dev guy. More than most I come across the issues faced by having folks with my skill-set within a cross functional team (the 'vertical ...
TJH's user avatar
  • 171
7 votes
5 answers
896 views

Why do companies claim they're using Scrum, when they aren't?

Being a software developer who interviewed with a lot of companies and switched jobs a couple of times, I noticed a lot of companies tend to claim they're using Scrum (e.g. during the interview ...
pstrag's user avatar
  • 173
6 votes
3 answers
24k views

Using Microsoft Project for managing a Scrum project

I am part of a Scrum team and we are constrained to use Microsoft Project (MSP). I understand that MSP is not primarily an Agile project management tool and I would very much to use something like ...
Ather's user avatar
  • 885
6 votes
3 answers
1k views

Can one developer be included to several Development Teams at the same time?

If technical skills of developer are very rare and specific and this developer hasn't full-time employment on one product, can he work with other product inside other Developer Team at the same time? ...
Sergey Kudryavtsev's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
12k views

How to write user stories for our UI development process?

First of all, let me apologize if I make some writing mistakes since english is not my native language. I'm currently working at a UX company as a front-end dev and I'm having some problems trying to ...
user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
11k views

Applying agile in a mostly operations/support environment

I have read numerous Project Management SE questions on this subject, as well as done a fair share of Googling. I am aware that different incarnations of this question have been addressed before, but ...
Pedro's user avatar
  • 699
6 votes
3 answers
2k views

Mobile apps: should shared backend resources between iOS and Android have their own backlog and be considered as a separate team?

Here is my situation: I work with two SCRUM teams, iOS and Android Each of the SCRUM team has its own Product and Sprint backlogs We have shared Sprint Plannings, Reviews and Retrospectives (both ...
user17129's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
4k views

Should meeting minutes be captured during Scrums of Scrums?

We hold daily Scrum of Scrums meetings on our project. The participants (i.e. non-technical managers) each manage several smaller projects and provide updates on their projects (from their daily ...
balinjdl's user avatar
  • 349
6 votes
5 answers
7k views

How to factor in story points/tasks for non sprint related items?

I understand that in general you create stories with story point complexity, and then define tasks and subtasks in which to mark time against, but how does this translate into items that are outside ...
Shawn's user avatar
  • 256
6 votes
3 answers
2k views

To what framework do "User Stories" belong?

In my University of Applied Science we got taught that user stories are a part of Scrum, and when reading things on the internet it seems that everyone indeed uses User Stories when using Scrum. The ...
Bart's user avatar
  • 63
6 votes
2 answers
23k views

Who should estimate user stories?

Should the product owner take part in estimating user stories? Furthermore, in our team not all developer familiar with every part of the system. Client and server side is a usual separation. GUI ...
user6352's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
478 views

How can we prevent business value from being dependent on multiple user stories in Scrum?

Our dev team keeps finding ourselves in a scenario where we have multiple stories, none of which actually provide usable value by themselves. In order to deliver any real world value, we need to ...
BadHorsie's user avatar
  • 223
6 votes
3 answers
1k views

How does a team (new to product and domain) estimate user stories of a ten year old product?

I am the scrum master for one of the products in a software development company. Our team, including me, operates from India. However my product owner is in USA. We are working on the feature ...
ramu's user avatar
  • 671
6 votes
1 answer
2k views

Better approach to sprint for QA and Dev team

We are having a challenge with fitting QA work into the Scrum process and specifically due to a need to do a full regression and load testing before releasing into production which takes up to 3 days. ...
Nat's user avatar
  • 163