Scrum E Book 1

Copyright© 2019 with quickscrum.
com
Table of Contents
About us 3
CEO Message 4
Chapter 1: Introduction to Scrum
1.1 History 6
1.2 Scrum in Brief 7
Chapter 2: Scrum Artifacts

2.1 Product Backlog 10
2.2 Sprint Backlog 14
Chapter 3: Userstory
3.1 Userstory in Brief 17
3.2 Write Userstory 18
3.3 Estimate Userstory 22
Chapter 4: Scrum Team

4.1 Product Owner 31
4.2 Scrum Master 35
4.3 Team Member 40
Chapter 5: Scrum Events

5.1 Sprint Planning 44
5.2 Daily Stand-up 46
5.3 Sprint Review 51
5.4 Sprint Retrospective 53
Copyright© 2019 with quickscrum.com 2

About us
Started in 2013 as a simple scrum solution provider, Quickscrum has evolved
as one of the leading work management solution today globally.
Having lean fundamentals within our DNA, we are on a mission to craft the
most innovative work management solution and cater its benefits to the
companies across multiple Industries.
Our passionate tech team uses artificial intelligence, machine learning,

business intelligence and many more latest technologies to solve day to day
work management issues.
Our Belief
In today’s fast moving era, every organization is thriving for the great success
every moment. Competition is inevitable. Resources are limited.
We believe the Operational Efficiency plays the key role in achieving great
success
Our Life
Crafting the enterprise solution to make organization operationally

efficient by better team collaboration and streamlining internal processes.

CEO Message
Hello Quickscrum family,
Scrum is everywhere. Everyone is trying to learn its framework and

implement within their organization to get benefited. Since last few years,
We have been working with clients globally with diverse culture and
geography to train their teams for scrum fundamentals and implement our
software to improve their team collaboration and streamline workflows.
We identified that many teams have learnt from internet about scrum and
found their understanding quite contradict. As well saw them struggling to
implement scrum.
I, Mrugesh PANCHAL founder of Quickscrum, and my team decided to

write upon the scrum framework in detail to help teams to understand
scrum framework in-depth. We have also incorporated our experience and
introduces some of the new fundamentals to practically improve team
efficiency.
In practical life, it’s not just about implement any framework rightly. It’s
about getting benefits and improve operational efficiency of the
organization to be successful. We are committed to bring series of e-books
having case studies, framework fundamentals, practical guidance,
individual and team improvements and research work to the Quickscrum
family.
We hope you will like our work. I personally welcome your feedback to
improve upon next time. You can send directly to me on
mrugesh.panchal@quickscrum.com.
Have a nice transformation journey .

Mrugesh PANCHAL, Founder

Chapter 1
Introduction to Scrum

1.1 History
Scrum is not only one of the greatest inventions in the agile world but also
one of the most popular frameworks. But with this popularity comes a
great responsibility, which when abused, leads to controversies.
Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka came up with the initial concepts of
scrum, including the word “Scrum” itself in their white paper in year 1986.
Jeff Sutherland fine tuned the concept and together with Ken Schwaber
collectively presented their experiences during the OOPSLA 1995
conference. Subsequently, Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle attempted to
communicate scrum through the first scrum book - Agile Software
Development with Scrum.
As the scrum community started growing, it was decided to create a

platform to bring them together, which in turn lead to the birth of
the Scrum Alliance (SA) and Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certification.
However, controversies started brewing about transparency and the
motive behind SA, resulting in the birth of Scrum.org.

1.2 Scrum in Brief
Scrum is based on the fundamental of iterative and incremental development.
It is designed to plan, execute and deliver iteratively. It emphasises on smaller
& frequent delivery cycle, continuous client feedback, adopt to the
requirement changes, team collaboration & self organizing behaviour.
Scrum is quite easy to understand but hard to implement. Since its inception,
scrum has also helped quite complex projects to be successful with high
return on investment (ROI).
Scrum team is generally made of 6-9 team members. Basic roles in a team are
– Scrum Master, Product Owner and Team Member.

Chapter 2
Scrum Artifacts

In Scrum, artifacts are “information radiators” and they serve to capture the
shared understanding of the team at a particular point in time.
In a co-located Scrum team, artifacts play a vital role for the team to reflect
themselves on how they are doing with the sprint goal. Artifacts defined by
Scrum are specifically designed to maximize transparency of key information so
that everybody has the same understanding.
Per the latest Scrum guide, Scrum framework defines 3 essential artifacts.
• Product Backlog
• Sprint Backlog
• Product Increments

2.1 Product Backlog
A product backlog is a prioritized
list of work for the scrum team
that is created from its
requirement. The most important
items are shown at the top of the
product backlog so the team
knows what to deliver first.
The product owner creates,

maintains, and regularly re-orders
the product backlog. It can also be
updated anytime to adapt to the
emerging requirement, customer
feedback, and market changes.
What are the Product Backlog Items (PBI) ?

The product backlog is composed of product backlog items or PBIs. Most PBIs
are functionalities that will have tangible value to the end user. These are
often written as user stories. Other PBIs include Defects, Technical work,
Knowledge-acquisition work, and any other work the product owner finds
valuable.
PBI Types
The product backlog items can be categorized mainly into four fundamental
types :
Feature: The most common type of PBI is something that is of value to a end
user – the product features. It can be a brand-new functionality or changes
to existing functionality. Features, for most teams, should represent the bulk
of items in the backlog.
Defects: Testing team includes defects/bugs in their product backlog. High-
performance agile teams never let defects live long so they are unlikely to
ever have many defects in their product backlogs.
Technical Work: PBIs can also include technical items. Examples might
include upgrading to the latest version of the Oracle DBMS or refactoring a
section of previously completed code.
Knowledge Acquisition: Another type of PBIs are items that involve

knowledge acquisition. During agile development when the team is
presented with a high degree of uncertainty a common and effective
solution is to research information. Examples include prototype, proof-of-
concept, research, experiment, spike, etc.
Creating the Product backlog

Creating a product backlog is a sole responsibility of product owner.
Depends on the type of the project, product owner starts creating a backlog
based on conversation with client or based on own project knowledge.
For many projects, product owner acts as a client, as s/he fully responsible
for the market research and idea generation. For example, start-up founders.
Maintaining the Product backlog

After this initial setup, the Product Backlog has to be maintained in an ongoing
process that comprises the following steps :
• Ordering the product backlog, the most important items are moved to
the top.
• Preparing the high-priority entries for the next sprint planning meeting.
• (Re-)Estimating the entries in the product backlog.

The product owner is responsible for making sure that the product
backlog is in good shape. This is a collaborative process.
When using the scrum framework about 10% of the scrum team’s total
time should be reserved for maintaining the product backlog - discussion,
estimation etc. The collaborative maintenance of the product backlog
helps to clarify the requirements and create a buy-in from the scrum
team.
Characteristics of a good product backlog

Good product backlogs share similar characteristics – DEEP: Detailed
appropriately, Emergent, Estimated, and Prioritized.
Detailed Appropriately: The product backlog items will differ in their

level of detail. Those that we will work on sooner, those at the top of
the product backlog, will be more detailed.
Those that we won’t work on or for some time will be less detailed. We
want to refine (add detail to) backlog items as they rise in priority,
adding details in a just-enough, just-in-time fashion.
Emergent: As discussed in earlier chapters, the product backlog is a

living document, constantly changing as the product is being developed
or maintained. As the team and product owner learn more about the
product and the marketplace, they might add new items, discard some,
and change others.
The emergent nature of the product backlog is not only expected but is
a sign of a healthy and functioning product backlog.
Estimated: Each product backlog item should have a estimated size that
corresponds to the effort required to develop that item. The product
owner uses this estimation to prioritize the backlog items.
Ideally, most of the items at the top of the product backlog will be
sprint-sized, small enough to be worked on during a single sprint. Large,

high-priority items should be broken into smaller items prior to
being declared sprint-ready.
Prioritized: A product backlog should be a prioritized list of PBIs, but

not every PBI needs to be prioritized. We recommend prioritizing about
a release worth of PBIs.
Prioritizing beyond that is likely a waste of effort, as too much might

change by the time the first release is out.
Tools to manage product backlog

The scrum team uses different tools based on their choices. Many
teams prefer sticky notes or spreadsheet. They are quite simple to use
but does not help in advanced analysis and monitoring. It is best to
adopt digital tool such as Quickscrum to rightly follow scrum and make
your team highly effective.

2.2 Sprint Backlog
The sprint backlog represents all product backlog items (PBI) committed by
the scrum team to be delivered within a single sprint.
How to create a sprint backlog

The sprint backlog is created during sprint planning meeting. During this
meeting, product owner presents high priority items to the team and entire
team agrees to complete a set of product backlog items within a sprint.
Team commits to the delivery based on their average velocity or capacity

and length of the sprint – ideally 1 to 4 weeks.
Ideally, sprint planning meeting should be timeboxed to maximum 2 hours.

Sometimes it is too short duration to check item feasibility, identify the
dependencies, break down into the task, assign to the resources and
estimate them.
Thus mature scrum team keeps at least 3-4 product backlog grooming
sessions prior to each sprint planning meeting.
Why sprint backlog is important?

Well defined sprint backlog has immense values such as,
• Deliver high value items
• Bring focus
• Provide clear goal to the team
• Bring Transparency
• Reduce impediments
• Keep everyone on the same page
• Measure the team velocity
• Improve quality
• Increase team efficiency
7 Tips for creating a good sprint backlog
• Tips 1: Define clear sprint goal. What exactly team aims to achieve
within a sprint.
• Tips 2: Involve every team member in the process. For example,

involving tester in each meeting will help to improve testing quality.
• Tips 3: Perform grooming session prior to the sprint planning

meeting to have identified technical feasibility, analyse
requirement, check dependencies, impact on architecture etc.
• Tips 4: Plan only high business value items.
• Tips 5: Discuss over every item in detail about how it should be

implemented.
• Tips 6: Have a clear definition of done.
• Tips 7: Break each item into smaller tasks.

Chapter 3
Userstory

3.1 User Story in Brief
A user story is a short, simple description of a requirement written from
the perspective of the end user (person who desires the new capability).
You may find many different explanation about user story on internet.
Simple word, user story helps,
• Shift focus on value creation. Help to assure that team doesn't

work on something having no value.
• Avoid lengthy requirement documentation
• Emphasis on end user personas
• Explain end user requirement in just one or two sentences
• Keep everyone on the same understanding
Writing good user story is really an art and require lots of practices. Clear and
precise story writing can help team to improve their efficiency by at least 2x.
With user stories, everyone in your team knows exactly “who,” “what,” and
“why” they are building features. Each component adds a necessary layer of
context to give your team a proper start.
A user story immediately directs the focus to a specific circumstance which

provokes further discussion and careful revision. The end result is that your
team becomes more focused on delivering solutions to user problems as
opposed to merely delivering functional code.

3.2 Write User Story
User stories allow you to say why the need you’re proposing to develop
makes sense. A user story answers 3 important questions,
1. Who are you building this for?

2. What are you building?
3. Why are you building this?
There are different templates on how to define user stories. A most popular
template is as follows :
As an [actor], I want [need] so that [business value]
Actor:
S/he is the ‘owner’ of the user story. This is often a user but it is
recommended to be more specific here. By using specific actors (e.g.
“Administrator”, “Logged in Customer”, “Unauthenticated visitor”) it’s easier
to understand and sets the user story into context.
Need:
Actual requirement of the actor in terms of feature.
Business value:
It explains, what are the benefits end user will get once the need is satisfied.
User stories are often written on index cards or sticky notes, and arranged
on walls or tables to facilitate planning and discussion. As such, they
strongly shift the focus from writing about features to discussing them. In
fact, these discussions are more important than whatever text is written.
Example 1: As a user, I want to filter items by item type so that I
can see how my team’s time is being used between features and
bugs on a weekly basis
Example 2: As a user, I want to filter items by item type so that I

can create a report on everything we did this month for my boss.
Notice how changing one component of a user story would change your
approach entirely?
In the first case, you would probably display this information in a chart or
graph for a simple breakdown of your team’s time.
In the second example, you would likely create a function to export the data
so it can be shared and presented.
I.N.V.E.S.T rule to write good user story
The I.N.V.E.S.T. guideline to writing user stories is almost universally

accepted as the standard to work by. The acronym was made popular by Bill
Wake’s original article from 2003. Our interpretation:
Independent
You should be able to prioritize and rearrange user stories in any way
with no overlap or confusion.
Negotiable
As previously discussed, a good user story can be reworked or modified
to best suit the business. User stories are not an explicit set of tasks.

Valuable
User stories need to be valuable. By this, we mean value for the business
or the customer. If it’s not, why would you have your team work on it?
Estimable
A good user story can be estimated. It’s also important to differentiate
time estimations from an exact timeframe. A rough estimate is beneficial
to allow teams to rank and schedule their priorities.
Small
We definitely recommend keeping your user stories small. While we
don’t suggest an exact timeframe to stay in, writing user stories that
focus on smaller tasks allows for greater focus.
The larger a story is, the harder it is to estimate and easier it is to get
caught up in sub items that should have probably been their own stories.
Testable
Before a user story is written, it is essential that criteria to test it is in
place. Outlining the testability first ensures that the story actually
accomplishes the goal you are trying to achieve.
A story is not finished until it is tested. For maximum productivity and

team alignment, make sure your team knows how their work will be
tested
Benefits of writing user stories

• Helps to express the business value.
• Avoid introducing detail too early that would prevent design
options and inappropriately lock developers into one solution.
• Avoid the appearance of false completeness and clarity.
• Get to small enough chunks that invite negotiation and movement
in the backlog.
• Stories are comprehensible.
• Developers and customers understand them.
• People are better able to remember events if they are organized
into stories.
• They support and encourage iterative development.
• They can be easily started as epics and later disaggregated at the
development time.
• Stories support opportunistic development.
• Stories support participatory design.
• Stories put the focus on the user’s goals.

3.3 Estimate User Story
Agile emphasis to estimate a story in Story point instead of hours.
What is story point?

Story points represent the relative sizing of the user story. It is a unit of
estimation used by Agile teams to estimate User Stories.
When the product owner wants some features to be developed he/she

desires to know how soon the team can complete the features and how
many resources it will take to complete the work.
From the developer’s perspective it’s next to impossible to predict the

exact time in which he/she can complete the work. The person can,
however, give a rough estimates about total time.
Note that instead of “will” the developer chose to use “might” because
he/she is not absolutely “sure about the time factor but “feels” it might
take that much time. This is user story estimation in a nut shell.
You don’t give an exact number explaining how complex the story is and
how long it’ll take to develop – you give a rough “estimate”.
As a human, we are good at comparing size, so estimating a story using

fibonacci series gives more clarity of its complexity and relative sizing in
terms of development. It is helpful to have a set of stories nearby to make
comparison and recommendation to set priority.
Here is an example of relative sizing and its estimation points to develop

following vehicle:
following vehicle:
Factors to consider while estimating stories

• Complexity : Consider the complexity of the story.
• Risk : Consider the team’s in-experience with developing the
story.
• Implementation : Consider the implementation factors.
• Deployment : Consider the deployment requirements.
• Interdependencies : Consider dependencies on other stories.
Who should be involved for story estimation?

All team members who are responsible for getting a story done
should ideally be part of the estimation

following vehicle:
Advantages of using story points for estimating work

• Story points are a measure of relative size and complexity.
• Story points are unit less, meaning as a scale, they are only
valuable to compare against each other within the same team.
• Estimating in story points encourages everyone, including
business people to participate in the estimation process (using
Planning Poker).
• Estimating in story points is fast and easy.
• Story points initiate high-level discussions about everything that
is involved in a project.
• Story points of completed stories can be used to generate the
teams velocity which can be used to predict future work
capacity.

Best practices to estimate stories
Follow these best practices to estimate stories within your product

backlog.
Step 1: Identify base stories

Identify one or multiple base or reference stories against which you would
do relative sizing of the backlog. This story is picked from current product
backlog or any other story which you have used earlier. But what is most
important is the understanding of this story must be same among
everyone on the team. Team should be confident of this base story.
Step 2: Talk through the detail requirements

Discuss with product owner about the story in detail.
Step 3: Discuss and note down points

These can be bullet points on the story card or text in the “notes” section
of a tool. This is best done by scrum master who can add these details
when discussion is on.
Step 4: Raise questions if any

During discussion, question may arise and must be clarified the same
time. Such as,
Requirement : Any doubt about story requirement? Raise an

alert. Ask product owner to give more clarity.
Technical Feasibility : Can story be delivered using current

technology? Any unforeseen technical challenges must be
surfaced.

Acceptance Criteria : Team must clarify the check list to be
fulfilled to mark story as accepted.
Dependency : Does this story have external dependencies? If yes,

that must be understood and resolved quickly.
Expertise : Do we have enough skills to deliver the story? Team

must have internal skills to deliver story otherwise delivery might
be delayed or not done properly.

Chapter 4
Scrum Team

A scrum team is a made of individuals working together to deliver the
requested and committed product increments. It comprises of cross-
functional members who are capable of achieving the sprint goal.
As per scrum framework, Team is made of three key roles,
• Product Owner
• Scrum Master
• Team Members
But practically, the scrum team can have additional roles such as,
• Architects,
• Analysts,
• System admins,
• QA Lead,
• UXD Engineers
• UI designers etc.
The most effective scrum teams are tight-knit, co-located, and usually 6
to 9 team members. Team members have differing skill sets, and cross-
train each other so no one person becomes a bottleneck in the delivery of
work.
Strong scrum teams approach their project with a clear "we" attitude. All
members of the team help one another to ensure a successful sprint
completion.

Responsibilities of scrum team
Core Responsibilities
• Embraces the Scrum Values – Focus, Commitment, Openness, Respect,
and Courage.
• Delivers working product on-time, on the scope and on quality.
• Shares development responsibilities, assists, trains and mentors team

members to meet “Sprint” challenges.
• Strives to value the individual and increase team recognition over self-
recognition.
• Builds consensus and applies sound judgment in a team-centric

environment.
• Provides open and honest feedback within a “Scrum Team”

environment.
• Always prepared to challenge the Scrum Team and improve

continuously.
Sprint Creation and Execution

• Help to plan sprint and get clarity over planned user stories.
• Focus on user stories with high business value and priority.
• Complete the planned user stories as quickly as possible.
• Request clarification from the product owner when unclear about a

user story.
• Conduct peer reviews on one another’s work.
• Take on tasks beyond your normal role as the sprint demands.

• Fully develop functionality as agreed to in the definition of done.
• Report daily on the sprint progress.
• Alert the scrum master to any roadblocks and help to effectively

remove it.
• Achieve the sprint goal as committed in sprint planning meeting.

4.1 Product Owner
A product owner is a person who represents the customer, business or
user community and is responsible for working with the team to
determine what features will be included in the product release.
As a liaison between the development team and customers, the product

owner must collaborate closely with both groups to ensure there is a clear
understanding of what features are needed in the product or application.
Because there may be a variety of types of customers and users, the

product owner must have a firm understanding of the business domain
and the varying needs of different types of users.
Required skills for product owner
A product owner is usually a CEO, domain specialist, project manager or

even a business analyst with technical skills. A Product owner should
ideally have a good balance of the following skills :
• Domain expertise
• Technical skill
• Decision making
• Fully available to the team
• Communication
• Business savvy
• Highly motivated
• Visionary and out of box thinking

Responsibilities of product owner
The Product owner decides what will be built and in which order. S/he
takes following responsibilities.
Manage Product Backlog and Release Planning

• Write user stories (smaller chunks of requirement).
• Fully elaborates acceptance criteria for each user story.
• Prioritize user stories according to business value.
• Perform release planning and ensures that the release backlog
is aligned with the vision and roadmap.
• Reviews product backlog in depth with the scrum master in
preparation for future release planning.
• Update user stories as needed in order to have an up to date
and comprehensive backlog.
Work closely with scrum team

• Collaborates with the team to ensure user stories are accurately
elaborated and understood.
• Ensures that everyone in the scrum team understands what is
required.
• Be available to answer any question arise during sprint
execution and support them.
Sprint Planning and Execution

• Attends sprint planning meeting to plan and elaborate each
user story to the team.
• Attends daily stand-up to remain engaged and up-to-date on the
team’s progress.
• Completes incremental reviews of stories as they are
completed.
• Adjust priorities of stories mid-sprint based on impediments or
dependencies.
• Attend sprint review meeting to get demonstration of what has
been achieved within a sprint, provide feedback and accept the
stories.
Stakeholder Management
• Collaborates with stakeholders outside of the team to review
progress.
• Collect and discuss required functionalities with the
stakeholders.
5 qualities of product owner
1. Leadership
As every team member is responsible for the product success,
It is must for the product owner to provide guidance and
direction to everyone involved in the development effort and
ensures that the project goes well.
2. Decision making
S/he should be a good decision maker especially in deciding
which product features will bring the highest ROI.
3. Communication
S/he must be able to communicate different messages to
different people about the project at any given time.
4. Serve
Adopt a “customer service” mentality, make yourself available
in-person whenever possible, and be open to questions.

5. Let Go
Allowing the scrum team to oversee their own task-execution
will save time and make everyone’s life easier.

4.2 Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is responsible for making sure a Scrum team lives by
the values and practices of Scrum. He/she is often considered a coach for
the team, helping the team do the best work it possibly can.
The Scrum Master can also be thought of as a process owner for the
team, creating a balance with the project’s key stakeholder, who is
referred to as the product owner. The Scrum Master does everything
possible to help the team perform at their highest level. This involves
removing any impediments to progress, facilitating meetings, and doing
things like working with the product owner to make sure the product
backlog is in good shape and ready for the next sprint.
The Scrum Master’s role is commonly filled by a former project manager

or a technical team leader but can be anyone.
Main role activities carried out by a scrum master

includes:
• He/she is a facilitator and servant leader who encourages and
demands self-organization from the development team.
• He/she enables close cooperation across all roles and functions,
addresses resource issue and disobedience of scrum practices.
• He/she protects the team from external and internal distractions.
• He/she removes impediments so the team can focus on the work at
hand and follow scrum practices.
• He/she is not typically a manager or lead, but he is an influential
leader and coach who does not do direct command and control.

Responsibilities of scrum master
Facilitation of Scrum events

The scrum framework defines several meetings those have to
be organized and facilitated by the scrum master. Following are
the scrum meetings,
• Daily scrum meetings
• Sprint planning meetings
• Sprint review meetings
• Sprint retrospective meeting
Maintain team dynamics

• Coaching team members.
• Mediating through conflicts.
• Helping the team to make decisions.
• Fostering the team’s self-organization.
• Mediating the general conflict of goals between the
development team and product owner.
Support learning
• Encourage team for continuous learning .
• Provide learning resources.
• Helping the team to be information radiators.
• Encouraging the use of best engineering practices within
the development team (e.g. one click releases, continuous

delivery etc.).
Help in product-related activities

• Help to write or split user stories.
• Help to write or adapt product visions.
• Help to prioritize product backlog items.
• Help in release planning.
• Being familiar with the team’s work (i.e. the product).
Supporting the big picture

• Bringing people together who should talk to each other.
• Keeping in touch with every stakeholder regularly.
• Helping the team to report to management.
• Help to further the agile community within the organization.
• Sharing insights throughout the company (micro-blogging,
blogging, internal conferences, etc.).
• Being a contact person for everyone in the team and
stakeholders regarding agile.
• Giving learning opportunities to people in the organization (e.g.
talks or workshops) and letting them learn important agile
concepts like e.g. technical debt.
Facilitating change
• Helping the team to get rid of impediments.
• Suggesting new metrics for the team as catalysts for change.
Mirror
• Reflecting agile and scrum values to the team.
• Reminding the team of their arrangements (e.g. policies).

• Helping the team to continuously improve their process.
• Reflecting issues to the team through observation from outside
of the team.
• Asking open questions.
• Checking the artifacts used by the team such sprint backlog,
metrics, etc.
Miscellaneous
• Helping the team to keep focus (e.g. by acting as a buffer
between external distractions and the team).
• Helping the team to maintain their scrum tools (storyboard,
action board, charts, backlogs, etc.).
• Helping team and product owner to find a suitable Definition of
Done.
Skills required for scrum master

A Scrum Master is usually the team leader or the project manager. A
scrum master should ideally have a good balance of the following skills,
• Technical expertise
• Understands the product owner’s vision
• A good team player and mentor
• Understands the team’s capabilities
• Motivate and coach the team
• Problem solver
6 Qualities of scrum master
Responsible
A scrum master’s role is a highly important in scrum. He/she
ensures that the team follows scrum in a right manner and is

responsible for facilitating the work process so the team can
deliver successful product increments.
Humble
One of the best ways of gaining the respect of people is to be
humble and remain true to work. S/he should play a servant-
leader role and talk humbly with people and make genuine efforts
to understand their problems and resolve them.
Collaborative
The scrum master should collaboratively work with the team to
resolve impediments and help team to achieve sprint goal.
Committed
Being an scrum master is not easy – it is generally a full-time job
and requires a lot of efforts. S/he must remain committed to the
team in terms of being available whenever needed and help team
effectively deal with their problems as they arise.
Influential
The scrum master bridges the gap between the scrum team and the
management. At times s/he might be required to negotiate for
better working conditions or quick resolutions to problems with
the management. S/he should be influential and able to convince
the management to resolve issues quickly.
Knowledgeable
The scrum master also functions as a mentor and coach for the
team. S/he should be conversant with the latest trends and
updates in scrum and share them with the team.

4.3 Team Member
The Scrum Master is responsible for making sure a Scrum team lives by
the values and practices of Scrum. He/she is often considered a coach for
the team, helping the team do the best work it possibly can.
The Scrum Master can also be thought of as a process owner for the
team, creating a balance with the project’s key stakeholder, who is
referred to as the product owner. The Scrum Master does everything
possible to help the team perform at their highest level. This involves
removing any impediments to progress, facilitating meetings, and doing
things like working with the product owner to make sure the product
backlog is in good shape and ready for the next sprint.
The Scrum Master’s role is commonly filled by a former project manager

or a technical team leader but can be anyone.
Main role activities carried out by a scrum master

includes:

• He/she enables close cooperation across all roles and functions,
addresses resource issue and disobedience of scrum practices.
• He/she protects the team from external and internal distractions.

• He/she removes impediments so the team can focus on the work at
hand and follow scrum practices.
• He/she is not typically a manager or lead, but he is an influential
leader and coach who does not do direct command and control.

Chapter 5
Scrum Events

Meetings or “ceremonies” are an important part of Scrum. They help to
broadcast information to all team members, bring common goal and
vision, and share team progress appropriately.
Every project has two elements:
• The content aspect: What you commit to achieving, such as writing

software.
• The process aspect: The activities you perform to keep the content
work on a track, such as updating gantt charts and writing status
reports.
Ceremonies or Events in Scrum:
• Sprint Planning
• Daily Stand-up
• Sprint Review
• Sprint Retrospective

5.1 Sprint Planning
Sprint planning meeting is a time-boxed session that lasts roughly 1 hour
for every week of a sprint. In sprint planning, the entire team agrees to
complete a set of product backlog items within a sprint.
Those set of items called as the sprint backlog. Team commits based on
past velocity or capacity and the duration of the sprint.
Every project has two elements:
Time-box:
4 hours for 2 weeks sprint or 8 hours for 4 weeks sprint
Attendees:
• Scrum Master: who facilitates the meeting.
• Product Owner: who clarifies the details of the product backlog

items and their respective acceptance criteria.
• Development Team: who splits the items into smaller tasks and
estimates required efforts to meet the sprint commitment.
When:
Before starting a new sprint.
Inputs:
• Product Backlog
• Team Capacity

Outputs:
• Sprint Backlog: A sprint backlog is a list of the items the team
commits to deliver within a sprint.
• Sprint Goal: A sprint goal is a short, one- or two-sentence,

description of what the team plans to achieve during the sprint. It
is written collaboratively by the team and the product owner.
Sprint planning process:

• Define precise goal for a sprint
• Choose the user stories that support the sprint goal
• Estimate user stories
• Commits to the stories based on team capacity
• Break user stories into smaller tasks
• Assign tasks to individuals

5.2 Daily Stand-up
In Scrum, on each day of a sprint, the team holds a scrum meeting called
the “Daily Scrum”. Meetings are typically held in the same location and at
the same time each day.
Ideally, the Daily Scrum meeting is held in the morning as it helps to set
the context for the day’s work. It is strictly time-boxed to 15 minutes.
Meeting Specifics
Time-box:
• 15 Minutes
Attendees:
• Scrum Master: who facilitates the meeting.
• Product Owner (Optional): who clarifies the details of the

product backlog items and their respective acceptance criteria.
• Development Team: who splits the items into smaller tasks and
estimates required efforts to meet the sprint commitment.
When:
It is held each working day at the same time and at the same place.
How is the meeting held?
The Daily Scrum meeting is not used as a problem-solving or issue

resolution meeting. Issues are taken offline and usually dealt by the
relevant personnel after the meeting. During the Daily Scrum, each team
member answers the following three questions :

• What did you do yesterday?
• What will you do today?
• Are there any impediments in your way?
Or alternatively, as an advancement of traditional Scrum practice and/or

market trends, each team member may explain:
• How much of work has been completed by him/her in the sprint?

• How much work is still remaining in the Sprint?
• Does anything impede progress? If so what it is?
By focusing on what each person accomplished yesterday and will

accomplish today, the team gains an excellent understanding of what
work has been done and what work remains towards Sprint commitment.
The Daily Scrum meeting is not a status update meeting in which a boss is
collecting information about who is behind schedule. Rather, it is a
meeting in which team members make commitments to each other.
Objective of daily stand-up
The Daily Scrum Meeting is held so the team can self-organize and achieve
its sprint commitment.
The key objectives are:

• Team Sync: To review progress toward the Sprint goal.
• Assess Risks: To assess any risks to the Sprint commitment.
• Adjust Plan: To make any adjustments if required to the plan so

the sprint commitment can be met.

• Accountability: The team should hold each other accountable
for achieving their daily commitments.
Key benefits
• The team stays in sync with how the project is going.
• There is an opportunity for swift course correction if needed.
• By consistently committing and delivering, trust is built among team

members.
• Action can be taken with those who are consistently unable to make
their commitments (not always pleasant, but usually necessary).
Do’s
Timebox your meeting duration: Without a specific time box in place, a

Daily Scrum meeting can drag on and actually waste the time of the team.
A typical daily meeting should get over in 15 minutes – but larger teams
could agree upon a longer duration. The idea is to stop when that time
runs out, and keep all discussions short and to the point.
Start the meeting on time: Ensure that the Stand-up starts on time, even
if some development team members are missing. A delay of even five
minutes, when multiplied by the number of team members, counts for a
lot of potential work wasted.
Peer to peer interaction: All interactions should be on a peer-to-peer

basis, and not in the form of a status report made to the Scrum Master.
Teamwork is always emphasized in Scrum, and the team should
communicate well with each other.
Ask the 3 main questions and answer them: There are three questions
that are sought to be asked and answered by each team member. What
did you complete yesterday? What will you do today? Did you find any
impediments in your way? Answers should be concise and precise.
Stay focused: The Scrum Master must keep the team focused on
answering the three main questions and prevent it from straying into
random discussions. Each team member should focus on the meeting and
not get distracted by phone calls or emails. This can extend the time box,
or worse, remove the focus of the team from the meeting.
Don’ts
Don’t use it as a status reporting meeting: Apart from answering the

three basic questions, the meeting should not be used to discuss other
topics or problems even if they’re identified as impediments by the team
members. The main purpose of the stand-up meeting is to make the team
conversant about the sprint current progress and set the focus upon what
work’s going to be done on that day.
Don’t micromanage the meeting: The product owner, scrum master or

any other team member should not micromanage the meeting. The stand-
up should not be used as a venue for issuing instructions to team
members or deciding how the team should carry out its work. Scrum
teams are empowered to decide on their own how work should be taken
up and completed. No efforts should be made to monopolize or dominate
the meeting.
Don’t remain seated during the stand-up meeting: As the name suggests,
the entire team should remain standing during the Stand-up. The idea is to

keep the team members on their toes so the meeting does not exceed the
time box and they get charged up for the day’s work.
Don’t hold the stand-up meeting away from the work location: With the
exception of remote or distributed teams, the daily stand-up should be
ideally held on or near the workplace or development room, preferably
near the Scrum board. The idea is to keep the team charged up to tackle
the day’s work and start with work immediately after the meeting. By
holding the meeting away from the workplace, the team could lose its
focus by engaging in other discussions while reaching the workplace.

5.3 Sprint Review
A Sprint Review (Demo meeting) is held at the end of each sprint to inspect the
product increment. The Product owner reviews and accepts or reject the user
stories.
Meeting Specifics
Time-box:
• 1.5 hours (2 weeks sprint) / 3 hours (4 weeks sprint)
Attendees:
• Scrum Master
• Product Owner
• Scrum Team
• Stakeholder and Sponsors
• Customer
When:
It is held at the end of each sprint.

During sprint review meeting, the development team demonstrate the
product increment done in a sprint.
The scrum team goes through the forecasted sprint backlog items and
reviews how the requirements (user stories) have been realized in the
product increment.
After the demonstration, the product owner and stakeholders tell their
impressions and clarify if a requirement is not implemented rightly. They

also identifies what has been done and what hasn’t been done according
to the Definition of Done. The product owner also accept or reject stories.
The result of this meeting can helps team to plan for the subsequent
sprint.

5.4 Sprint Retrospective
The sprint retrospective is a meeting facilitated by the Scrum Master at
which the team discusses the just-concluded sprint and determines what
could change that might make the next sprint more productive.
The sprint review looks at what the team is building, whereas the
retrospective looks at how they are building it.
The sprint retrospective is an important mechanism that allows a team to

continuously evolve and improve throughout the life of a project. It is
important that everyone, including the team members, product owner,
and scrum Master, get a chance to air their opinions in an open, honest,
yet constructive atmosphere.
Meeting Specifics
Time-box:
• 2 hours (2 weeks sprint) / 4 hours (4 weeks sprint)
Attendees:
• Scrum Master
• Product Owner
• Scrum Team
When:
It is held at the end of each sprint.
The Sprint Retrospective is held after the sprint review at the end of each

sprint. During the retrospective, the team self-identifies elements of the
process that did or did not work during the sprint, along with potential
solutions. It aims to continuously improve the processes.
Sprint Retrospective meetings can be facilitated by asking each person in

the team to answer the following questions:
• What went well during the sprint?

• What would we like to change?
• How can we implement that change?
Alternatively, instead of asking what went well and what didn’t go well,
the following questions may be asked:
• What should we start doing?

• What should we stop doing?
• What should we continue to do?
Additional topics can also be considered for discussion:
• Results: Compare the amount of work planned with what the

development team actually completed. Review the sprint burndown
chart and identify work team couldn’t completed and find the reason
behind that.
• People: Discuss team composition and alignment.
• Relationships: Talk about communication, collaboration, and working

in pairs.

• Processes: Go over getting support, development, and code review
processes.
• Tools: How are the different tools working for the scrum team? Think
about the artifacts, electronic tools, communication tools, and
technical tools.
• Productivity: How can the team improve productivity and get the
most work done within the next sprint?
Teams are asked to be specific in their answers so that effective actions

can be taken.
The retrospective meeting is usually conducted immediately after the

Sprint Review meeting. It is recommended that the entire team
participate in this exercise so that any issues or concerns that the teams
face during the previous Sprint are addressed during the teaming and
avoided in upcoming Sprints.
Benefits of Retrospective Meeting

Process improvements are made at the end of every sprint. This ensures
that the project team is always improving the way it works.
• Identifies what went well and what could be improved

• Improve process continuously
• Bring transparency
• Increase team bonding
• Create open culture
• build the team’s sense of ownership and its self-management

Tips for effective retrospective meeting
• Review notes and actions from the previous retrospective
• Ask what problems, successes and opportunities you have with the
team, the product, and the process
• Let each team member speak without discussion
• Vote on the most important items to take action on
• Use “five whys” to discover the root cause of problems.
• Create an action plan for your top priority items.
• Explicitly allocate time for improvement actions
• Record your retrospectives & actions

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Chapter 2: Scrum Artifacts

Chapter 4: Scrum Team

Chapter 5: Scrum Events

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Our passionate tech team uses artificial intelligence, machine learning,

Crafting the enterprise solution to make organization operationally

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Scrum is everywhere. Everyone is trying to learn its framework and

I, Mrugesh PANCHAL founder of Quickscrum, and my team decided to

Have a nice transformation journey .

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As the scrum community started growing, it was decided to create a

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The product owner creates,

What are the Product Backlog Items (PBI) ?

Knowledge Acquisition: Another type of PBIs are items that involve

Creating the Product backlog

Maintaining the Product backlog

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Characteristics of a good product backlog

Detailed Appropriately: The product backlog items will differ in their

Emergent: As discussed in earlier chapters, the product backlog is a

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Prioritized: A product backlog should be a prioritized list of PBIs, but

Prioritizing beyond that is likely a waste of effort, as too much might

Tools to manage product backlog

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How to create a sprint backlog

Team commits to the delivery based on their average velocity or capacity

Ideally, sprint planning meeting should be timeboxed to maximum 2 hours.

Why sprint backlog is important?

7 Tips for creating a good sprint backlog

• Tips 2: Involve every team member in the process. For example,

• Tips 3: Perform grooming session prior to the sprint planning

• Tips 4: Plan only high business value items.

• Tips 5: Discuss over every item in detail about how it should be

• Tips 6: Have a clear definition of done.

• Tips 7: Break each item into smaller tasks.

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• Shift focus on value creation. Help to assure that team doesn't

A user story immediately directs the focus to a specific circumstance which

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1. Who are you building this for?

As an [actor], I want [need] so that [business value]

Example 2: As a user, I want to filter items by item type so that I

I.N.V.E.S.T rule to write good user story

The I.N.V.E.S.T. guideline to writing user stories is almost universally

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A story is not finished until it is tested. For maximum productivity and

Benefits of writing user stories

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What is story point?

When the product owner wants some features to be developed he/she