How To Elevate Your Scrum Game: Mastering Core Principles
Scrum is a part of Agile project management. It breaks down complex tasks into simpler and more manageable pieces. Moreover, it is a continuous process that helps plan, prioritise tasks, and see which area needs improvement. Using scrum principles, product managers can foster an efficient collaborative process.
Several statistics prove that Scrum is one of the best frameworks to use. Scrum is the most used Agile project management framework among 76 countries, with 61% of respondents using it. Furthermore, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft use it. It’s easy to see why because Scrum increases productivity by 300-400%.
This framework allows team members to decide which tasks to prioritise. Aside from this, because it is a continuous process, it’s easier for scrum teams to see how to adapt to their project’s obstacles. In this article, you will learn more about Scrum, its values, principles, and more by scrolling below.
What is the Scrum principle?
Initially, the Scrum framework came from Takeuchi and Nonaka’s Harvard Business Review in 1986. However, Jeff Sutherland and his Easel Corporation team adopted it for software development in 1993. The Scrum principle is an empirical process control which enables Scrum teams to create a collaborative environment.
Scrum principles are the main objectives a team should consider when doing projects for a product. Scrum involves different elements that consider how heavy tasks can be made into more manageable ones. After breaking these down, it becomes easier for a product manager to assign team members tasks based on their skills.
Additionally, Scrum takes project deadlines and importance into account. Finally, Scrum allows the entire team to adapt to customers’ changing needs. Because of its heavy consideration of teamwork and collaboration, Scrum helps produce high-quality business products.
The five Scrum values
These values allow members to know how to work and collaborate with teammates. Here are the five Scrum values each member should keep in mind while working on a project:
#1. Commitment
This value is one of the most important ones each team member must uphold. Commitment means giving all your efforts to a task, no matter your challenges. Scrum teams need to work as one. And so, commitment ensures that agile team members accept work they know they can complete and exceed in.
Product managers can help members become committed by allowing less pressure on their members. In addition, managers can ensure commitment by facilitating proper planning and assigning tasks to sprint team members.
#2. Focus
Focus is one of the skills each member must value. Scrum has deadlines and specific periods in which team members must complete their tasks. During such time, they need to attend to and focus on their assigned task.
For product managers to ensure team members’ focus, not giving too many tasks at once will help. Managers can learn to decrease tasks by knowing which needs prioritisation using Scrum when too many tasks are at hand. By doing so, team members’ focus isn’t divided.
#3. Openness
For product managers to understand areas or tasks that need improvement, team members must be open to sharing them. This means being honest about the progress of their tasks and what they find difficult to do. As a result, product managers can facilitate what should be done.
Aside from this, openness also means team members must be open to feedback and criticism. Thus, they can readily adapt and improve their work. That’s why, for this Scrum value, product managers should give honest feedback during daily Scrum meetings.
#4. Respect
Mutual respect is what enables Scrum teams to avoid falling apart. This means that each member must acknowledge that their work is not more important than others. Additionally, in a work setting, respect allows team members to become open to each other and consider different insights.
Product managers can help instil respect for the entire Scrum team by showing it to fellow workers, too.
#5. Courage
Courage is what makes a team pass through different obstacles. There are different ways this Scrum value can be shown. For instance, it can be being transparent with a project manager and stakeholders about a task’s progress and challenges. Moreover, it can also mean being open to trying new techniques and methods for a project.
Project managers can foster courage by also demonstrating this value.
The six principles of Scrum
Scrum principles lay the foundation of the Scrum framework. You can adapt these 6 principles for different kinds of projects and products.
#1. Empirical process control
You cannot base Scrum principles on subjective insights. This is the reason why data and evidence are needed. This empirical process control is based on observations, critical analysis, and inspection of the management and development processes.
Transparency
This empirical process principle ensures team members can access all the information about a project or task. Additionally, this means that the entire Scrum team knows the progress and obstacles of a task. A product manager and team members can build a trusting environment and make informed decisions by ensuring transparency.
Inspection
In Scrum principles, product managers need to check the work of the Scrum teams regularly. This includes making daily standup meetings to track progress and the amount of work done by each team member. Through inspection, it’s easier to identify problems and issues and immediately solve them.
Adaptation
Adaptations come from the results of regular inspections in Scrum. After regular inspections and each progress, product managers can guide the team for changes. These adaptations can be the continuous use of effective techniques or new methods to solve an issue.
#2. Self-organisation
Although collaborative work is important for a fast work pace, self-organisation among teams is just as essential. During the entire scrum process, team members should be able to make their own decisions.
Moreover, they should be able to address their complex adaptive problems independently. Taking the initiative allows only pressing matters to be brought up in meetings, allowing a quick work process.
#3. Collaboration
Collaboration is one of the most important Scrum principles. Collaboration can be team members working together on one task or project. But it can also mean creating opportunities for them to see each other’s progress and give feedback.
#4. Value-based prioritisation
In software development, there are always many projects or tasks with deadlines close by. Handling too many projects with deadlines too close to each other can be stressful. That’s why in Scrum, tasks are prioritised based on their value.
#5. Timeboxing
Timeboxing ensures project stakeholders stay and achieve maximum business value. This Scrum principle enables product managers to give limited time frames known as “sprints” for each prioritised task. By time boxing, instilling a sense of urgency among members so they can finish important projects on time is easier.
#6. Iterative development
Iterative development is one of the most fundamental principles of Scrum. This involves transforming complex projects into simpler tasks or iterations by breaking them down.
This includes a cycle of planning, producing, and inspecting each task. Through it, product managers can identify areas that need to be improved.
The Scrum framework
After learning about the different values and principles of Scrum, you can now start building its framework. You need more than just knowing the basics to make an effective Scrum framework.
The Scrum framework includes Scrum roles, Scrum events, and Scrum artefacts. Read more about these and each of their components here:
#1. Scrum roles
No man is an island, even in business. That’s why Scrum emphasises working as one. And so, knowing what role you play in developing and managing a product is crucial. But what role you take doesn’t necessarily have to be related to your job title. In Scrum, the roles are based on your responsibility and skills.
Here are the main Scrum roles you need to know:
Product owner
A product owner has one of the most vital roles in Scrum. They’re the ones who are mostly in charge of understanding what customers want. These can range from business requirements to current industry trends to relaying customer feedback. They’re also tasked to manage product or sprint backlog, assigning new tasks and projects to the team.
Aside from these, a product owner should thoroughly understand their vision for a product. For example, a product owner selling photos online must know what aesthetic and market the site targets. Moreover, as they do so, they also need to weigh stakeholders’ inputs about the product.
Simply put, product owners have the primary role of pointing in the direction of where the team should head. By doing so, priorities become clearer, and team effectiveness increases.
Scrum master
The Scrum master is the backbone of the Scrum team. They’re the ones that relay the expected output of the product owner to the development team. After the product owner has defined the value and objectives of a project, the Scrum master manages the development team. Because of this responsibility, they’re best suited for product managers.
They’re the ones who hold Scrum meetings, set community task objectives, and plan with the Scrum team. As the product owner assigns the sprint backlog to the development team, the Scrum master manages how team members should handle it.
The Scrum master is also heavily involved with day-to-day project planning to ensure a smooth working environment.
Development team
The development team comprises all the individuals who work together to develop and manage a product. They do not have to be engineers or IT experts. Depending on what product you’re selling, they’re the people who make the changes and innovations happen. This team can include online sellers, writers, designers, graphic artists, and more.
This group comprises people who have the skillset you need for the development process of a product. Their responsibility includes producing deliverables based on the objectives and guidance of the product owner and Scrum master. Moreover, they’re also the ones who solve product or project issues your team faces.
#2. Scrum events
For an agile project management method like Scrum, several events take place. These events are essential steps a Scrum team needs to take for an innovative and creative environment. Additionally, this set of events allows teams to work effectively with the goals of the brand or business in mind.
Sprint planning
Sprint planning is the initial step a Scrum team should make. A sprint is a task that’s time-boxed or has a specific deadline. And so, this event includes sprint planning meetings to discuss how to do each task. This step is where a product owner and a Scrum master discuss what the desired outcomes for a project are.
During the event, development teams can ask questions to clarify any confusion about a project. The execution of the product development process was also defined during the meeting.
Daily Scrum
After the discussion of the general overview of a product in the sprint planning meeting, daily Scrums take place. These meetings monitor the progress of each team member on their tasks. Here, the Scrum master or product manager can guide members in solving any problem.
Daily Scrums typically last for fifteen minutes or even less every day. Each member then describes where they are with their task and points out if they’re facing any issues.
Through daily Scrums, a product manager could ensure the iterative development of a project.
Sprint review
The sprint review is an event in which product owners and stakeholders give feedback about the product developed. This event takes place before the release of the product to the market. Through sprint review, you can ensure empirical process control where a product is inspected and analysed.
This event can also include as many people as possible. For example, you can conduct beta testing during the sprint review if you’re making any updates. Here, you can invite different players to review the game update you developed. By doing so, you can adapt and change features based on the feedback of others.
Sprint retrospective
The sprint retrospective is where the Scrum team discusses the results from the sprint review. Here, the feedback from stakeholders and testers is defined. The Scrum teams can understand what went well and what didn’t through this event.
After that, the team can learn how to improve the product and repeat the sprint cycle. If areas need improvement, the Scrum team conducts another sprint planning.
#3. Scrum artefacts
Scrum artefacts refer to all the information agile teams need about the product for development. Furthermore, these include important actions the development team must take to create the product. Because it details all the necessary steps, giving insights for an effective product development process.
Here are the Scrum artefacts you need to learn about:
Product backlog
Product backlogs are the features, tasks, specifications, bug fixes, and work requirements the Scrum team should know. These product backlogs come from data such as customer feedback, market trends analysis, and competitor analysis from the product owner. Using these backlogs, the Scrum master or product manager can assign tasks to their team.
Sprint backlog
After product backlogs are listed, product managers can make sprint backlogs. Sprint backlogs are time-boxed tasks. These tasks’ time limit is based on their value. In line with this, to reduce the sprint backlog, break down product backlogs into manageable tasks. After, each task is assigned a prioritisation level for Scrum masters to assign them to team members effectively.
Increment
The product of sprint backlogs becomes product increments. These increments are customer deliverables produced by the development team. It’s also important to note that Scrum stores all previous product increments. By compiling it, a product manager and the team members can compare whether new product versions align with old ones.
Comparison of Scrum principles and traditional project management principles
Scrum principles may seem simple, but it’s a step-by-step analysis, and values offer several benefits. Compared with traditional project management principles, it fosters an innovative work environment more effectively. In addition, it also allows product managers and teams to work on deliverables with fewer errors.
Here are the differences between Scrum principles and traditional project management principles:
Flexibility and adaptability
Scrum is more flexible and adaptable than traditional project management principles. While the latter only follows a linear process, Scrum is a cycle.
For instance, it’s easier to track progress because it includes daily Scrum meetings. Additionally, as it visualises each sprint backlog of a team member, providing sprint reviews is easier. Because Scrum highlights the monitoring of team activities and progress, it allows for more flexibility and adaptability than traditional ones.
Collaboration and empowerment
Scrum requires product owners to produce product backlogs for the team to see, making collaboration easier.
Additionally, sprint backlogs allow team members to see which tasks they need to do. By doing so, you can ensure a collaborative process where members know where each other is in their project. Traditional methodologies cannot do this as they emphasise individuality more than collaboration.
Focus on value delivery
Traditional project management methodology also considers the value of a product. However, these tend to lean more towards reaching deadlines and project milestones.
In contrast, Scrum prioritises tasks not according to their deadlines but their value. The measurement mostly considers how much increase in users in products a task can generate. Aside from this, because it is time-boxed based on value, it allows time to fix issues.
Through time-boxing, Scrum allows teams to adapt changes to increase product value.
Transparency and visibility
Openness is encouraged in Scrum. Whereas traditional methods may overlook team members’ insights and feedback, Scrum emphasises them. This openness allows for a healthy work environment where workers are transparent with each other.
Aside from this, each product and sprint backlog are accessible to all members. Meanwhile, traditional frameworks often only allow product owners and managers to see different information. That is why the Scrum methodology allows more visibility than traditional ones.
Continuous improvement
In Scrum, product managers can monitor daily progress to guide team members to improve. Moreover, you and your team members can give sprint reviews every daily scrum, allowing continuous member and product improvement.
It also does not stop after product delivery. Instead, it goes through a sprint cycle, tracking customer feedback for further developments. Because traditional methods are linear, they do not foster continuous improvement like Scrum.
Team dynamics and self-organisation
Although traditional frameworks highlight individuality, Scrum is more effective at self-organisation while allowing healthy team dynamics.
In Scrum, team members can finish their work according to how they want to, as long as they align with the objectives. However, while doing so, it also allows members to share information. Traditional methods do not do this and stop with individuality, making Scrum more efficient.
Why an agile framework like Scrum works
Scrum is one of the many Agile frameworks a product manager can use. It creates high-quality products by making large chunks more digestible. Because of this, team members can focus and finish their tasks easily.
This Agile framework works well, especially for teams that specialise in software development. Products sold online tend to be complex, and many tasks need attention. Furthermore, Scrum’s agile practices allow teams to collaborate through shared ownership of important information. These qualities of Scrum make it one of the best agile frameworks available.
Conclusion
Scrum principles are one of the frameworks product managers can use to ensure high-quality deliverables. While considering customer or user input is important to increase product value, how you handle teams makes the product.
Not only does Scrum make complex tasks simpler, but it also allows the sharing of data and objectives among members. Because of this, members have a clear view of what they should produce. Additionally, it provides daily tracking of member progress, making collaboration and adaptation easier.
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