Skill Platform For

Entrepreneurs
SKILLFRONT
WWW.SKILLFRONT.COM
© COPYRIGHT SKILLFRONT

 PROGRAM BOOK
For Certi ed Associate In Scrum
Fundamentals (CASF)

Fundamentals Of The Scrum

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 Dedication
To all of the SkillFront Entrepreneurs, thank you for inspiring us, keeping us
focused, and making sure we do our best to guide you to execute ideas,
grow businesses, and dominate your markets online and of ine.

We are proud of seeing you while you serve your clients at your highest levels
possible and positively in uence their lives that wouldn't happen otherwise.

Without you, your engagement, and your loyal support, SkillFront could not
come where it is today.


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 Table Of Contents CLICKABLE

Table Of Contents _________________________________________________________5

Welcome To The SkillFront _________________________________________________9
Become A Bit Better Than You, Everyday ______________________________________14
What Is Scrum? _________________________________________________________20
Agile Manifesto _________________________________________________________25
Self-Organization _______________________________________________________26
Inspect And Adapt _______________________________________________________27
Five Key Values Of The Scrum Framework ____________________________________29
Scrum Value #1. Courage _______________________________________________________29
Scrum Value #2. Focus _________________________________________________________30
Scrum Value #3. Commitment ___________________________________________________31

 Scrum Value #4. Respect _______________________________________________________33

Scrum Value #5. Openness______________________________________________________33
Introduction To Scrum - A Real World Example (Case Study) ______________________35
Before Starting The First Sprint _________________________________________________35
Sprint 1 - Day 0 ______________________________________________________________36
Sprint 1 - Day 1 _______________________________________________________________37
Sprint 1 - Day 2 _______________________________________________________________38
Sprint 1- Day 6 _______________________________________________________________38
Sprint 1 - Day 10 ______________________________________________________________39
Sprint 2 - Day 1 ______________________________________________________________40
Three Elements Of Chaos And Frustration Before The Scrum Framework ____________41
Frustration #1. We Had To Plan Our Entire Project Before We Understood It __________44
Frustration #2. Lack Of Commitment, Change Management, And Collaboration _______48
Frustration #3. Autocratic Decisions Overruled Democratic Decisions _______________53
What Makes The Scrum Framework Succeed? _________________________________55

Scrum Roles - The Scrum Team _____________________________________________58

The Scrum Team _____________________________________________________________60
Characteristics Of A Scrum Team ________________________________________________61
Rules & Norms _______________________________________________________________62
Accountability _______________________________________________________________63
Empowerment & Self-Organization ______________________________________________63
Balanced Set Of Skills _________________________________________________________63
Size Of The Scrum Team _______________________________________________________64
Collocation _________________________________________________________________65
Responsibilities Of The Scrum Team______________________________________________65
The Scrum Master Role ___________________________________________________67
Guarding The Scrum Team, Removing Impediments _________________________________69
Scrum Master As A Change Agent ________________________________________________70
Facilitation Of Scrum Rituals (Events) _____________________________________________71
The Scrum Product Owner Role ____________________________________________72

 Managing The Product Backlog __________________________________________________73

Release Management __________________________________________________________73
Stakeholder Management ______________________________________________________73
Collaboration With The Scrum Team _____________________________________________74
The Scrum Team Member Role _____________________________________________75
Next Steps For The Pursuit Of Growth ________________________________________77
Thanks For Learning With The SkillFront ____________________________________80

Welcome To The SkillFront

“ As to methods, there may be million and then some, but
skills are few. The one who grasps skills can
successfully select his or her own methods. The one
who tries methods, ignoring skills, is sure to have
trouble.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essayist and Poet

New Year's Eve 2010. I could see the colors of reworks, re ecting off my
husband's face. He turned and looked at me, while tears
As the rest of the world went about celebrating the were pouring down my cheeks, and he said, "You didn't
dawn of a new year heading into 2011, I lay in my bed, sign up for this. We're going to x it!"
next to my baby, who was born less than four short
months ago. I lay down and put my hands back behind my head;
closing my eyes, I felt every aspect of my being lled
My husband sat next to me, and I can still remember the with rage.
sound of reworks set off in the neighborhood.

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 My mind raced back to the winter, nearly twelve months back to my corporate career, although I could have
before, to me getting promoted to a leadership position reasonably quickly nd another job, given my
at one of Switzerland's largest local banks. As the quali cations and job experiences, even if I had this big
manager of the busiest branch in the middle of the city "obstacle" of having a few months old baby.
of Zurich, I was leading thirty to forty employees,
contractors, and agency staff. To this day, I can't help but Let me tell you this. The shock of getting red helped
marvel at the thousands of working hours, the millions of me admit three very important things that I haven't been
Swiss francs, and the enormously complex processes entirely honest to myself before:
necessary to make a simple nancial investment product
shown in our portfolio of products. 1. Large companies move slowly. Good ideas often died
on the vine simply because they had to be approved
And yet, there I was lying, heading into 2011, with the by too many people.
termination letter in my hand. It turned out that my
employer didn't want to occupy their demanding 2. Climbing the corporate ladder is an obstacle to doing
positions with mothers of newborn babies. They couldn't great work. I wanted to focus on getting things done
wait any longer and quickly sent me my noti cation at and making things better, not constantly positioning
the end of my twelve-weeks of of cially deserved myself for promotion. Politics and turf wars are an
maternity leave. inescapable part of the daily experience of working
for a large company.
At this moment, you may be wondering why I didn't go

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3. Frustration leads to burnout. I wanted to enjoy my And most important:
daily work experience, but instead, I felt like I was I am a SkillFront Entrepreneur.
running a gauntlet each day. It began to affect my
health during my pregnancy, happiness, and I train entrepreneurs at all levels —from want-to-be
relationships with my husband, friends, and family. entrepreneurs to owners of large enterprises— to
execute ideas, grow businesses, and dominate their
The longer I thought of these facts, the more I realized I markets online and of ine.
wanted out. I desperately wanted to work on my own
terms, as an entrepreneur. I wasn't trying to become an expert.

The next ten years took me on a journey, trying to bring In fact, I wasn't even sure what being an expert meant. I
up my baby, become a good wife, and transform myself was, and I am still trying to be a student of my own
into the practical scientist to unlocking measurable passion; helping and serving other entrepreneurs
results in every area of my life every day. A scientist I call succeed in business.
the SkillFront Entrepreneur.
I wanted to set myself free after getting laid off. I had no
My name is Yeliz Obergfell. clue that what would start with a decision to change my
I am a married woman. life would transform into a global movement thanks to
I am a mother. the principles, frameworks, and support of SkillFront, the
I am a businesswoman. Skill Platform for Entrepreneurs.

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 I started the idea of SkillFront in 2011 with zero synthesist by nature, and my travels through the
knowledge of marketing, sales, persuasion, closing, e- business literature quickly became an exercise in
commerce, or automated digital marketing systems. separating the diamonds from the rough.

On top of that, I had never delivered a service that was The more I learned, the more helpless I felt. For every
100 percent created by me, and I had spent most of my great resource I found, I had to process ten other
career selling other services. resources to gure out how to apply that resource in
practice to excel on my own entrepreneurship journey.
From 2011 to 2014, I struggled to get the message I felt
in my heart and soul out to the world. Although we were I started to wonder: how much of what's out there —and
having some mild success, I was paralyzed trying to there is a lot out there— I really needed to know. How
gure out not only the psychology of being a female could I separate practical business and entrepreneurship
leader with my message, but also the science and skills from the dry theory and technobabble? I only had
technology to sustain and scale my business. so much time and energy, so I started searching for a
lter: something that would direct me to the useful skills
I have always been an avid learner, but before I decided and keep me away from the chaff. The more I searched,
to learn everything I could about how I can succeed as the more I realized it didn't exist — so I decided to
an entrepreneur, most of what I read was ction. If there create the SkillFront.
is one thing I am good at it, it is taking in a huge amount
of information and distilling it into essentials. I am a

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As of this moment, 143,487 SkillFront Entrepreneurs are

actively using the SkillFront Platform to quickly get their
ideas, products, and services out to the world!

I don't share that with you to impress you. To some of

you hearing this, that is a big thing, and to others, it's
nothing. I share it to demonstrate what is possible
when you learn, live, and leverage the practical science
and art of being an entrepreneur while combining
those skills with lessons you are going to earn in real
practice.

So take a deep breath. It's time for you to unlock the

blueprint of success as an entrepreneur and get to work.

Welcome to the SkillFront.

Yeliz Obergfell, SkillFront

Cofounder, Vice President – Entrepreneur Experience

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 Become A Bit Better Than You, Everyday

“ Before you can be great, you must be good. Before you
can be good, you must be bad. Before you can be bad,
you must try.”

— Jim Edwards, Copywriter and Digital marketer

The Key To Success: Model The Best That was the discovery of thoughtful modeling to build
my own skills and career. Children use modeling all the
During one of the seminars I attended more than a time to learn how to speak, use tools, or tie their shoes.
decade ago in Nashville, Tennessee, I had one of the
most signi cant aha moments in my personal and If you look at it carefully, modeling is not only essential
entrepreneurial growth journey, which impacted my to build new skills, but also it's necessary for the
business more than everything else I learned until today. continuity of skills, lessons, know-how, and the world's
intellectual and cultural legacy from one generation to
another.

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 One caveat here: I have seen and met many people who 3. Use this information to build the path of your
mix modeling with copying someone else's materials, success that mirrors theirs. Your strategy may be
patents, works, ideas as they’re, and use them for their similar to the business or leader you're modeling, or
own goals. Don't do this. That is illegal and unethical. you adjust it for your present circumstances.  

What I mean with thoughtful modeling is: So, I started looking at other businesses, studying how
they came to where they're today. After all, their
1. Look for a business that is already successful in techniques worked for them, they could work for me.
your chosen eld or a leader who has created the But for some reason, my efforts made very little (if any)
kind of life you want to live. success and income. I was frustrated because I could
see others making money successfully. What was I doing
2. As Tony Robbins rightly put out there: Success leaves wrong?
clues. Find them. There's no need to reinvent the
wheel. Those who have succeeded before you have It took me almost four years of studying, researching,
done so, followed a plan, and you can do the same and interviewing successful business people before I
thing. Look into their history and their rise to the realized that what I was seeing on the surface wasn't
top. How did they get to where they are today? What their full arsenal of skills and strategies. The
kind of obstacles and setbacks did they face, and entrepreneurs who were making decent money were
how did they overcome them? What are their doing it through steps and processes invisible to the
philosophies about their work and their life? naked eye.

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 While I had learned and modeled the part of their
businesses that I could see, multiple things were
happening behind the scenes that made the magic
work.

I found that the difference between a $10,000 and

$1,000,000 business was all the things happening after a
buyer initially contacted those businesses.

It took me years to discover and master these hidden

skills below the surface of the iceberg, but when I did it,
the results spoke for themselves. I wanted to launch
SkillFront because I know there are entrepreneurs like
me who have been trying to be successful, yet are not
having much success.

This and other SkillFront programs are the culmination

of a decade spent analyzing thousands of companies
I was modeling what I could see happening on the
and their success models. I have built a number of
surface of successful businesses, but they made
successful companies of my own, and I have worked with
the real money in ways I couldn't see.

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 tens of thousands of students and clients to guide them
All Skills You're Going To Learn Are
to build businesses in every industry you can dream of -
both online and of ine. Evergreen

This and other programs in the SkillFront platform will If you've tried to learn how to build and grow your
unlock the practical skills and frameworks that are company in the past, you've probably purchased courses
mastered and continuously used by champion and courses that teach systems that worked when they
businesses and leaders in their industries. were created but became outdated. Often, before they
even reached a wider audience and found their way to
I hope that while you're learning those skills, you will you.
realize your dreams of success are a lot closer than you
think. You will soon see that by providing a ton of value, SkillFront programs, on the other hand, are playcourses
communicating effectively with your audience, and for creating and scaling successful businesses that will
building out your sales processes and ows in a very exponentially increase your sales and income. SkillFront
strategic way, you can get your product, service, and teaches evergreen skills, frameworks, and strategies that
message out to the world. And you can get paid what will be just as useful 20 years from now as they are
you're worth while doing it. today. It's the mission of the SkillFront to focus on
principles and methods that are timelines, even if
technologies and tools change.

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 We don't just teach this stu ;

We actually do it.

There are many people teaching business and

entrepreneurship from one or another angle, and the
vast majority of them are making money by teaching
other people’s business strategies. Russell Brunson calls
those people "shovel sellers" because during the gold
rush, the people who made the most money were the
ones selling the shovels. Today's modern shovel sellers
are selling you those strategies without actually using
any of the techniques themselves.

The difference between SkillFront and most others is One of our amazing partners MicroTrain from
that we actually do this for real. That's right. The skills Chicago, the United States of America, and their
we're going to reveal to you have been learned and then valuable trainees for their successful course and
veri ed by our own real-world practices, or we have certi cation programs.
earned them after thousands of tests, sleepless nights,
mistakes, trials, errors, successes, as well as failures.

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 We have tried these skills in countless different

industries, from law practices to multinational e-
commerce giants, from coaching services to software-
as-a-service providers, from physical product retailers
online and of ine to real estate brokers, from healthcare,
tness, wellness and leisure providers to sports clubs
and educational institutions, and everything else you
ever imagine in between.

We also directly work with hundreds of other businesses,

advising them and increasing their pro tability in almost
every niche and industry you can dream of.

I am excited for you to dive in and have some fun with

this. So, let's get started!

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 The term "Scrum" was rst used and published by

What Is Scrum? Harvard Business Review in January 1986. Hirotaka
Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka coined the term "Scrum"
What is Scrum? Well, without making things too with their article: The New New Product Development
complicated, the Scrum framework can be de ned as Game. (Yes, two News)
the following:
You should have a look at "The New New Product
Scrum is an iterative software engineering process to Development Game" to see how everything all about
develop and deliver software. Scrum got started!

Although the software is the main focus of the Scrum Scrum can be used in all kinds of software development
framework, iterative and agile Scrum process can be and projects. To develop and deliver complete software
is already being applied outside the software industry as packages or only some modules of larger systems —
well. both for products and services of internal and external
clients.
Most people in the IT industry believe that the term
"Scrum" was coined early in the 2000s as a parallel track The Scrum Framework is a lightweight process. It
of emerging agile software development and delivery focuses on increasing the productivity of teams while
trends. That is a piece of incorrect information! reducing wastes and redundant activities.

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 Overview of the Scrum Framework

Scrum de nes some general guidelines with a few rules, • Five Scrum Events (Scrum Rituals) or Ceremonies:
roles, artifacts, and events. Nevertheless, all of these Scrum Grooming (Backlog Re nement) Meeting,
components are critical, serve for speci c purposes, and Sprint Planning Meeting, Daily Scrum Meeting, Sprint
they are essential for the successful use of the Scrum Review Meeting, and Sprint Retrospective Meeting.
framework.
• Product Backlog (Scrum Backlog) or Scrum Product
The main components of Scrum framework are: Backlog: An artifact that is used to manage and
prioritize all of the known requirements of a Scrum
• Three Scrum Roles: The Scrum Product Owner, the project.
Scrum Team, and the Scrum Master.

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 • Sprints: Cycles of work activities to develop shippable Sprint as a software increment.

software product or service increments.
Another central element with the Scrum framework is
• Sprint Backlog: An artifact to keep track of the continuous improvement that we enable with
requirements committed by the Scrum teams for a "inspect & adapt". A Scrum Team continuously monitors,
given Sprint. inspects, and assesses their artifacts and their use of
Scrum framework to adapt and optimize them. These
continuous efforts for optimization maximize quality,
Self-organization and unconditional collaboration are ef ciency, client satisfaction, and therefore minimize
critical elements of the Scrum framework. Scrum Teams wastes and overall project risks.
do no longer require a project manager in a classical
sense. With the Scrum framework, the Scrum Master and The Scrum framework understands that the
the Scrum Product Owner share the role and requirements are likely to change and they are not
responsibilities of a typical project manager. entirely known, especially at the beginning of projects.

Nonetheless, a Scrum Master or a Scrum Product is Every project has unknown unknowns. Sometimes a
never allowed to overrule the democratic decision- few, sometimes a lot. The Scrum framework helps us
making capability of a Scrum Team. For instance, only embrace that we can discover and deal with these
the Scrum team members can jointly commit which ones unknown unknowns only while we are running our
of highly prioritized Backlog items they will deliver in a projects.

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 The Scrum Team rst ne-tunes and granularizes the own goals, the team members feel more engaged, and
lower-level or low priority requirements before it they know that their opinions are listened to. This
implements them. During Scrum Grooming (Backlog inclusion of Scrum team members to the natural ow
Re nement) and Sprint Planning Meetings. Openness and planning of software projects increases the team
for change, continuous optimization, and learning from morale and subsequently augments the team
errors are now becoming integral elements of the whole performance.
software engineering lifecycle.
Scrum Masters possess another vital role in the Scrum
Another cornerstone of the Scrum framework is Framework as they work as servant leaders for and with
transparency and direct communication. The Scrum their Scrum Teams.
Product Owner works closely with the Scrum Team to
identify and prioritize requirements. These requirements Scrum Masters are trained facilitators to ensure awless
are written down as user stories and stored in the Scrum operation of their Scrum Teams. Sometimes they are
Product Backlog. The Scrum Product Backlog consists master negotiators to protect their Scrum Teams from
of all tasks that need to be implemented to deliver a interruptions and ctive priorities of their stakeholders.
working software system successfully. Other times they are master communicators to remove
or prevent known or anticipated impediments before
A Scrum Team is empowered to select the user stories these impediments bring their teams to dead-end
with which they are con dent to deliver within the 2-4 streets. To only call a few of the responsibilities of Scrum
weeks of Sprints. Because the Scrum Team commits its Masters. We will cover more about the duties of various

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 Scrum roles later.

The Scrum Framework, in its pure form, is best suitable

for highly independent, one-team green eld or
brown eld projects.

However, the practical common sense of Scrum

professionals did not stop there. With the introduction
of additional roles and addendums such as "Chief Scrum
Product Owner" and "Scaled Scrum", it can be used
within different project con gurations too, including
multi-team and geographically distributed project
setups. We will cover more about these as well.

For now stay tuned and keep on enjoying the lecture!

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 scrum process. Agile manifesto values:
Agile Manifesto • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools,
When the IT industry talks about the Scrum framework, • Working software over comprehensive documentation,
It's also often we hear the term "Agile Scrum" along the • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation,
same lines as "Scrum". It led some of us in the industry • Responding to change over following a plan.
to think and look for differences between the terms
"Agile Scrum" and "Scrum".
While the factors on the right-hand side do still possess
Here is good news for you. "Agile Scrum" and "Scrum" signi cant values, the agile manifesto appreciates and
terms do both refer to the same thing. They both refer prioritizes the factors on the left-hand side higher.
to the Scrum software engineering process. Then why
do we sometimes use the word "Agile" in front "Scrum"? The elements favored by the agile manifesto have been
carefully time-tested and chosen to:
It's because the scrum framework fully embraced and
embedded the Agile Manifesto (Manifesto for Agile • Serve clients and stakeholders better and create value
Software Development) to its core process, principles, for them with software,
and underlying philosophy. That brings us to understand • Enhance the profession of software engineering
the agile manifesto and the values of the scrum process regardless of your role, title, and career level.
better before we deep-dive the technicalities of the

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 together despite different opinions and possible

Self-Organization con icts among various scrum team members. Self-
organization requires compliance and trust in joint
The scrum team organizes itself. Scrum team members decision-making processes.
decide in consensus about tasks they need to execute
to deliver the goals of a sprint. A self-organized team Those decision-making process in the scrum framework
doesn't require a manager or a team leader. includes, but not limited to, planning, estimating,
implementing, reporting, and reviewing the work the
Self-organization in the scrum framework is very scrum team is jointly responsible.
disciplined. Sprint Backlog, Sprint Burndown Chart, and
Daily Scrum Meetings which you are going to learn more
about them later in this material build the foundation of
self-organization.

Organizing the work by themselves requires for the

most teams a learning phase. Competent scrum masters
who own scrum master certi cations support their
scrum teams to excel with self-organization quickly.

Yes? Then bring up a team that can self-organize its work!

Self-organization also includes the ability to work

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 That was the birth of Toyota Improvement Kata, which

Inspect And Adapt we today call "Inspect and Adapt" while we talk about
scrum software development and delivery framework.
According to "Scrum Inspect and Adapt":
Scrum Inspect and Adapt is a straightforward concept to
comprehend, but the hardest to properly implement and
• Step 1. Inspect: We do our best to grasp the current
master.
status of the project with our current level of
knowhow and understanding about it.
Companies have nally con rmed that none of their
• Step 2. Adapt: We de ne a direction and vision about
project managers can fully foresee the big picture of
the next steps of our project and then strategize and
complex systems. They were unable to do reliable end-
execute our vision.
to-end planning. It was evident for them that they
• Step 3. Learn: We carefully observe, learn, and teach
needed to try something different.
each other while we do so. We continuously log what
works and what doesn't work while we do our work.
Together with lean manufacturing (also known as lean
• Step 4. Restart: Start over from Step 1 again.
movement), companies needed to develop a process to
empower them strategically. They needed a standard
Note that those four steps described above are analog,
operating procedure to help them learn and x their
but not limited to the following Scrum rituals (Scrum
courses of action while they're running their projects
events).
and even operations.

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• Step 1. Inspect is analog to Sprint Review Meetings

and Sprint Retrospective Meetings.
• Step 2. Adapt is analog to Sprint Planning Meetings
and Backlog Re nement Meetings.
• Step 3. Learn is analog to Daily Scrum Meetings.
• Step 4. Restart is analog to the closure of a sprint and
the start of a new sprint.

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 So that you’re going to deliver a great job and fantastic

Five Key Values Of software that your customers and employers love. Let
me now tell you more about those principles of the

The Scrum scrum process.

Framework Scrum Value #1. Courage

We have already mentioned that the scrum framework is
There are times when doing the correct thing to serve
not only a software engineering process. It also has a
the best values and bene ts for our clients are not the
robust set of underlying principles.
easiest. In such moments, scrum master, scrum product
owner, and the scrum team members should remember
In fact, most of the professional business domains can
their duty and obligation.
apply and utilize these principles.

That's to build the best possible products and services

It’s not enough to get a scrum certi cation to be hugely
in their particular business and information technology
successful with the scrum. You should possess a rm
domain. To be better than mediocre, a scrum team
grasp for scrum values to succeed with the Scrum
should sooner or later face dif cult decisions that
framework.
won't make everyone happy in their particular

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 ecosystem of stakeholders. with my work?

To deal with this, all members of the scrum team should • Prioritization: What tasks should I be working on
remember what they learned during their scrum next?
certi cation training.
Each moment in time, there is one critical question that
They should remember to be courageous, and they the entire scrum team, including scrum master and
should master to decide and act courageously. product owner, must be answering.

This question is: "What are the most important things we

should be doing at the moment to ful ll reasons of why
Scrum Value #2. Focus an employer hired us in the rst place?"

With the scrum framework, when you hear the value

Scrum framework has several built-in events (rituals) to
focus, you should be thinking about two things:
ensure the reasonable prioritization of user stories and
tasks. According to the scrum process, the prioritization
• Identi cation of correct work: What tasks are
of user stories and their associated tasks should have a
necessary to deliver the goals of my sprint? What are
continuous priority.
essential to developing the best software products
and services for my clients so that they will be pleased
So we make sure that the scrum team works on the right

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things in the correct order. • Sprint Retrospective Meeting: These meetings

support the scrum team to prioritize what aspects of
Some of the built-in scrum ceremonies (scrum events) their engineering process must be rst improved.
to prioritize our work and adjust our focus are:
Here in this section, I covered scrum rituals only from a
• Scrum Grooming (Backlog Re nement) Meeting: focus point of view. You can nd a more detailed
Grooming Meeting solely focuses on prioritization for explanation about the scrum ceremonies later in this
Product Backlog to prepare it before the upcoming material.
Sprint Planning Meeting.
• Sprint Planning Meeting: These meetings help us see Having read all these, it must be evident for you now
the dependencies and correct order of work to deliver how essential prioritization and focus for the scrum
our user stories. framework are.
• Daily Scrum Meeting: Daily Scrum (Daily Stand-Up)
Meeting supports us to set the tone of an upcoming
workday. We must direct our focus on where it's most
required.
Scrum Value #3.
• Sprint Review Meeting: Sprint review meeting Commitment
indirectly shows us where the emphasis of the scrum
team must be channeling to have more successful Without the commitment of scrum master, scrum
reviews in the future. product owner, and the scrum team, there is no

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 possibility to deliver outstanding results with software. obsession with the team's mission to build and deliver
astonishing software, each time the scrum team
In the world of the scrum software development encounters a non-trivial impediment, your work will slow
process, most people translate the commitment value as down and stall.
the agreement and con nement of goals of given sprint
deliverables. Then the scrum master and the scrum team will start
creating explanations to justify and legitimize for scrum
Although this entirely makes sense, that understanding is product owner why they're unable to deliver sprint
not awless. Whenever you hear the word goals. Excuses should have no more room in your team
"commitment" within the context of scrum values; what if your goal is to become a better than an average scrum
you should remember is the word: "obsession". team.

To be successful in software engineering and, in life and Only with an enormously high level of dedication, it's
business, you should become obsessed with your goals. relatively more comfortable and ful lling to solve the
So in the context of the scrum process, you should problems of our clients and help and build value for
become obsessed with creating marvelous software for them with software.
your clients to solve their problems.

Why are commitment and the associated obsession with

scrum goals so important? Because without the

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 Scrum Value #4. Respect Scrum Value #5. Openness

Regardless of their age, gender, race, belief, experience, The scrum value "openness" is often one of the primary
competence, opinions, and work performance, every differentiators between an average and high-performer
member of a scrum team must respect and count on scrum team. It would help if you resembled the
each other. openness capability of a scrum team to the vast ability of
a collection of openminded individuals.
This respect is not only con ned within the boundary of
the scrum team. Moreover, every internal or external IT They're creative, innovative, intellectual, honest, direct,
and business stakeholder who interacts with the scrum and humble. In the scrum software engineering and
team is utterly respected and welcomed by a scrum delivery process, there is no inappropriate opinion,
team. decision, and action.
Experienced team members must pay attention in order
not to invalidate the willingness of the contribution from The only condition is that they must be transparent, and
less experienced team members. they should aim to contribute to the joint mission of the
scrum team.
It's particularly crucial to properly receive and answer
opposite opinions that the majority of the group do not It doesn't mean that every decision and action must
agree with. necessarily accelerate the outputs of the scrum team,

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and they should result in substantial success stories. outcomes as vital chances to meaningfully improve
their overall productivity and quality of work.
Thanks to openness and courage values, the scrum
software development group is not afraid of making
mistakes. They see their errors and less than optimal

Courage, Focus, Commitment, Respect, Openness are the vital Scrum Values you always keep in mind.

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 He needs to make sure that his client will get the correct
Introduction To software to achieve tangible business results. He writes
down the essential use cases and discusses them with

Scrum - A Real the architects, client representatives, and other

stakeholders from IT and business units.

World Example After assembling the high-level use-cases and

requirements, he writes them into the Scrum Product

(Case Study) Backlog and initiates an estimation and prioritization

session with the Scrum Team. As a result of this session,
all items in the Scrum Product Backlog get an initial
rough estimate and priority.
Before Starting The First
Sprint During those sessions, Anna, the Scrum Master, ensures
that everyone speaks the same language. So, the Scrum
Product Owner, the Scrum Team Members, and their
Alex works as the Scrum Product Owner of a new
stakeholders are aligned with the anticipated goals. So
software development project. One of his rst tasks is to
they have an adequate understanding of potentially
assess and nd out requirements to deliver business
new concepts for them, such as Use Case, Backlog,
value his client is looking for.
Sprint, and so on. And most importantly, the Scrum

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 software development and delivery process is correctly that all prerequisites and dependencies are ful lled,
applied in the store. which could be critical to delivering certain software
features successfully.
Now Alex, the Scrum Product Owner, begins to break
down the high-level requirements into the rst draft of During Sprint Planning Meeting (What-Part), the Scrum
smaller-grained user stories. With this list, he then calls Team commit to complete the user stories 1,2,3,6,7 and
for the rst Sprint Planning Meeting. 8 until the end of the Sprint. So these user stories are
now moved from the Scrum Product Backlog to the
Sprint Backlog. The user stories 4 and 5 cannot be
accomplished in this Sprint, as some prerequisite
Sprint 1 - Day 0 technical infrastructure is not yet in place.

During the Sprint Planning Meeting, Alex presents the

After the What-Part of the Sprint Planning Meeting,
Scrum Product Backlog items from the highest priority
Anna, the Scrum Master, calls the Scrum Team to drill
to the lowest. The Scrum Team asks and clari es open
down how the team is going to implement the
questions. For each item, the team discusses if they have
committed user stories (How-Part). The emerging tasks
enough capacity and the required know-how to develop
during the How-Part of the Sprint Planning Meeting are
and deliver it. The Scrum Team needs to ensure that all
written down on the cards, and the team store them into
required human and technical resources are in place
the Sprint Backlog. Now all members of the Scrum Team
before the start of the Sprint. They need to con rm
are ready to select a task to begin to work on.

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 After this meeting, Anna updates the Sprint Burndown
Sprint 1 - Day 1 Chart to visualize the progress of work during this
Sprint. Then she calls the software vendor, orders the
In the morning, the whole team gets together for their
missing license, and delivers it to Melinda.
Daily Scrum Meeting. Everyone gives a brief and
concise statement about what he or she has done so far,
updates the estimates of remaining work on the cards of
the Sprint Backlog. Everyone tells what he or she is
planning to do today, and reveals if there are any
impediments which hinder them from processing any
tasks.

Today one of the Scrum Team members, Melinda,

informs the Scrum Team that she has a problem with the
license of the integrated software development
environment she is using. Anna, the Scrum Master,
checks if other team members have the same problem
and con rms that she'll take care of this impediment
after the meeting. After about 15 minutes of this Daily
Introduction to Scrum - A Real World Example (Case Study )
Scrum Meeting, everyone goes back to work.
across various Scrum Phases and Sprints

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 discussion regarding the optimization of some database

Sprint 1 - Day 2 queries. Anna reminds the team that the Daily Scrum
Meetings are not meant to do the work, but formally
In the morning, the whole team gets together again for
aligning the team about the work and bringing them on
their Daily Scrum Meeting. In the afternoon, a member
the same page.
of the Scrum Team, James, has uncertainty about the
expected outcome of one of the user stories. He calls
After the Daily Scrum Meeting, Alex (Product Owner)
Alex, Scrum Product Owner, and they discuss this user
informs Anna (Scrum Master) that the client brought up
story to ensure that James properly understands it. After
several new requirements that may potentially impact
Alex gets informed and con dent about how to proceed
the ongoing Sprint and the subsequent Sprints. Anna
with this user story, he continues working on its
politely reminds Alex that the Scrum Team is unable to
implementation.
pick up these requirements during the current Sprint as
the team has already committed to the scope (user
stories) of this Sprint. And yet, Anna calls a Backlog
Sprint 1- Day 6 Re nement Meeting for the afternoon so that Alex can
inform the team about these new requirements.
The days starts again with the Daily Scrum Meeting of
the team. Anna, the Scrum Master, notices this morning During this meeting, the group supports Alex to gure
that the meeting tends to take more than 15 minutes. out where these user stories t the overall
The Scrum Team members are engaging with a development plan of the software, their initial task

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 break-down, estimates, and priorities. At the end of the Sprint Review Meeting, Alex
concludes:

• The team delivered user stories 1,2,6 and 7 as

Sprint 1 - Day 10 committed and expected.
• The team couldn't nish the user story 3 on time, and
Finally, that's the last day of this rst Sprint. Anna, the
they didn't demonstrate this user story at all. So, the
Scrum Master, invites the Scrum Team for the Sprint
remaining tasks of this user story are shifted to this
Review Meeting. The team has prepared a non-
next Sprint.
production server with the latest version of the
• The user story 8 did not ful ll some of its De nition of
shippable software increment they created.
Done (DoD) criteria. This user story is moved to the
next Sprint, so the team can de ne and complete the
Alex, the Scrum Product Owner, and Mr. Rich, one of the
associated tasks to satisfy the DoD of this user story
client stakeholders, sit in front of an instance of a
later.
graphical user interface of this software. They validate if
the implementation meets the expectations and if the
Alex, the Scrum Product Owner, and Mr. Rich, the client
team documented details regarding the current level of
stakeholder, shortly debrief the Scrum Team about the
application adequately.
upcoming changes and challenges about the software
requirements and the direction of the overall strategy
about this software should be going. Mr. Rich thanks the

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Scrum Team for their efforts and commitment and
leaves the room.
Sprint 2 - Day 1
Alex, the Scrum Product Owner, keeps on adding new
After the completion of the Sprint Review Meeting, the
requirements to the Scrum Product Backlog based on
Scrum Team sits together for the Sprint Retrospective
his recent client meetings. Moreover, he improves the
Meeting. During this meeting, they discuss what went
way he articulated DoD of user story 8, so the Scrum
well during the Sprint and what could be improved, so
Team can better envision the expected outcome from
that the likelihood of failed commitments like it
this user story.
happened with user stories 3 and 8 will reduce in the
next Sprints. One of the hurdles identi ed from the
Alex then invites the team for the Sprint Planning
Sprint Retrospective Meeting is that the team do not
Meeting for Sprint 2. The Scrum Team discuss and
know enough about the overall system architecture.
commit to user stories with the guidance of Anna, the
Anna, the Scrum Master, takes over the task of bringing a
Scrum Master, and subsequently, the second Sprint
system architect on board to coach and guide the team
begins.
at the beginning of the next Sprint.

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 development and software delivery framework in our
Three Elements Of organizations.

Chaos And A few days before I wrote these lines, we had lunch with
one of my ex-colleagues with whom we used to work

Frustration Before together almost 20 years ago.

He currently works as a scrum master for one of the

The Scrum leading sof tware houses in the agile project

management software domain. As a scrum master,

Framework Marcus is now in charge of operating an agile scrum

team whose scrum team members located in
geographically distributed locations around the globe.
To better understand the impact of the scrum
framework to our software engineering practices and During our lunch, Marcus admitted that there are a lot of
businesses, it makes sense to have a look at a day in the typical challenges with distributed agile scrum teams.
life (or a software project in life). Some of the problems he speci cally mentioned related
to his software project con guration are:
Therefore, I would love to brie y talk about a software
project from the past before we adopted the scrum

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 • Differences in working styles among scrum team Then we explained to him one of our past software
members, projects before we used to meet with the scrum
• Timezone differences, framework. I'm sure that many scrum masters would
• Cultural mis ts, and resemble this experience to their previous projects
• Language constraints. before they've gotten their scrum master certi cations.

Despite these dif culties, Marcus still added that Back in the late 1990s, we were part of a software
running a software project with the agile scrum process engineering group to build a smart card-based public
is more fun, productive, and enriching than how we key infrastructure. Smart cards securely protected
used to work 20 years ago. Compared to days when we private keys of infrastructure members, associated
used to work without scrum software development and public keys and their wrapper certi cations were openly
scrum software delivery processes. distributed (as the name public implies).

Marcus’ statement was indeed a big testimonial for the Back in the day, this was by itself a relatively complex IT
credit of the scrum framework from a very accomplished project that required multiple interdependent hardware
and experienced manager, scrum master, and product engineering and software engineering teams. We had to
owner. do massive amounts of research and development
(R&D) to build a fully functional hardware and software
Thank you, Marcus! system.

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Remember these are days before we had the minimum

viable product (MVP) concept to experiment, create,
learn, and experiment again.

Without scrum to create such a sophisticated

infrastructure that constituted numerous hardware and
software elements was a real challenge.

Here are three signi cant setbacks we used to have

without any scrum masters and anyone who possesses a
scrum master certi cation in our teams.

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 Capability Maturity Model (CMM), ISO 9001:2008 and
Frustration #1. We other derivates attempted to help our companies to
ensure we build our correct software in correct ways.

Had To Plan Our How successful they used to be is not part of this book.

Entire Project This book was meant to focus on the scrum process and
merits of the scrum framework rather than criticizing
almost extinct procedures.
Before We However, I have to add that these process improvement

Understood It frameworks before the scrum software engineering

framework recommended a phased approach. They
advised a phased software engineering approach which
Without scrum, our teams had built and delivered we called the Waterfall Software Engineering Model.
entirely wrong software and hardware products that did
not ful ll demands from our client. With the Waterfall Model, each software project was
supposed to start with requirement analysis, where we
We had times in our professional lives when some third aimed to understand what our client needed and
party companies had imposed how we supposed to wanted.
build our software products or software services.

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Then we designed these requirements, we implemented we reached to end of the software engineering lifecycle.
them, we tested (veri ed) them, and we maintained Nonetheless, the reality didn't play out like that!
them in our software production environments. Finally,

The Waterfall Methodology vs The Scrum Framework

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 and failed software projects, the usage of the Waterfall

Methodology was one of the critical factors of failure.
But why?

As shown on the left side, when deploying the Waterfall

Methodology, there is a strict sequential chain of the
different project phases. A previous phase has to be
completed before starting the next phase. Going back
is, in most cases, painful, costly, frustrating to the team,
and time-consuming.

The project timeline is planned at the start. A releasable

Phases in the Classical Waterfall Software Development Model
product is delivered only at the end of the project
timeline. If one phase is delayed, all other phases are
The adverse effects of unforeseen delays happened
delayed too.
during a particular phase of the Waterfall Software
Engineering Model were inevitable to the following
To avoid this, project managers of the Waterfall
software engineering phases.
Methodology usually try to anticipate all possibilities
beforehand. That means that in one of the earliest
Studies have shown that in over 80% of the investigated
phases of the project, they try to de ne all requirements

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 as ne-grained and complete as possible. However, that the development phase nished before the testing
requirement de nition in an initial stage of a project is phase started. And yet, this is precisely and
often complicated, and therefore many requirements unfortunately how the Waterfall Methodology used to
change (or should change) throughout the project. work.

Studies have shown that in more extensive and complex The Waterfall Methodology for developing software can
projects, about 60% of the initial requirements do be used for implementing small and straightforward
change throughout the course of projects. Other projects. But for bigger and more complex projects,
requirements are implemented as de ned, but some of this approach is highly risky, if not insane. It's often
them are not really needed by the customer. So those costlier and always less ef cient than Scrum software
implementations consume time and money that could development and delivery framework.
have been better used to implement functionality with a
higher added value for its clients. This was the life before the Scrum framework.

The separation into different project phases forces Sending our software back and forth between various
project managers to estimate each phase separately. teams, without the guidance of professionals with the
The problem is that most of these phases usually are not Scrum skills, made our work bureaucratic, complex and
separate. They are working together and in parallel. unproductive. Finally, it wasn't only the product which
suffered, but also employee morale and commitment to
For instance, no reasonable human-being can assume our organizational mission have wholly disrupted.

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 Some of these demands are monitoring, compliance,

Frustration #2. and predictability. There was no focus on serving clients
well and increasing employee morale at all.

Lack Of Thus members of software management teams and

Commitment, various other internal and external stakeholders

attempted to have a xed deadline for software delivery
projects and easily monitor the progress of software

Change engineering phases.

Management, And They penalized their people if something was outside

the planned track, and they hoped to x emerging

Collaboration
issues before the scheduled date of project completion.

Furthermore, independent silos realized entirely

The most signi cant weakness of process improvement separated software engineering phases. As an example,
frameworks used before Scrum was that: They mainly the development team was completely independent of a
focused on self-serving organizational demands of software testing (veri cation) team. Most people who
leadership. supposed to work for the same business mission didn't
even know each other by their names.

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 Have you got a guess about the reason for this silo- One silo for C++ developers, another silo for database
mentality in our organizations rather than focus on administrators, and another entirely separate quality
business missions and professional (business) maturity of assurance silo in over-sees and it goes on and on. Go
employees? and gure!

The reason is simply the matrix management. Matrix The biggest challenge with the matrix organizational
management is an organizational management and structure was that: To deliver a software project without
employee structure, and it has been in our businesses the scrum framework and scrum masters, project
since the 1970s. At rst glance, the differentiating idea managers had to borrow employees from silos
behind a matrix organization or matrix management temporarily.
seems to be smart.
These employees did not even physically position with
The Leadership creates an organizational structure by their project teams, but they still located in the rooms of
bringing together employees with similar kinds of their particular center of competences.
functional and technical skillsets into the same or at best
neighbor silos. Up upon completion of projects, these temporary
Back in times, it was quite popular to see the so-called project teams dissolved and project participants moved
"Center of Competences" in our companies where each on their next assignments to serve for other projects.
center of competence represented an independent and
autonomous silo.

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The Waterfall Project Delivery Model in a Matrix Organization

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 Therefore, the targeted business values of these Now let's take a short moment to visualize how the
ongoing software projects have never been the utmost change management and impediment handling of
priority for these independent silos. software projects played out. How they played out in a
project con guration with the waterfall model, with the
They tend to see their work as checkboxes they ticked matrix organization, and without the scrum process.
for one project over here and another project over
there. Yes. You're right.

Leadership and matrix organizational model didn't teach Management and employees treated change
them how professionals should commit their business to management, impediment, and error handling as if
improve the bottom line, including sales, revenue, and they're ill exceptions which shouldn't have happened in
pro t. the rst place.

A McKinsey Quarterly article written by McKinsey & Therefore, changes in a software project have been the
Company has also clearly illustrated this illusion of cost synonym of delays. They usually created a domino effect
optimization beyond the matrix organization. of cascading delays. Teams required someone to blame
Gartner has estimated that organizations worldwide and nger-point for defects and impediments.
have been yearly spending 600 billion USD to recover
their IT systems from non-scheduled maintenance work Last, but not least, because silos did not have a
and defects. mechanism in place to process, x, and learn from their

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errors, they kept on repeat-ing the same mistakes.

Furthermore, they kept on augmenting the amount of

technical debt while they passively attempted to deal
with their problems.

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 However, this is precisely opposite of how most of the

Frustration #3. mainstream leadership used to operate to make
decisions before the scrum era.

Autocratic Before we had the scrum process in our organizations,

Decisions autocratic decisions from leaders overruled the

combined intelligence of their teams.

Overruled They invalidated the democratic decision-making ability

of groups who were in charge of doing the real works

Democratic which spanned the entire software engineering lifecycle

from the conception of software to its operations.

Decisions The remoter a decision was shifted away from work

centers (teams) it impacted, the more dif cult it was to
Steve Jobs once said: give a correct mission-critical decision.

"It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell The judgments from leaders used to be usually
them what to do. We hire smart people, so they can tell impulsive, not thoroughly thought-out, mostly late and
us what to do." tentative, but sometimes even too early.

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These autocratic decisions imposed from the top made

employees feel undervalued. They entirely hindered the
ability of their organizations to come up with creative
and innovative solutions to handle competitive business
and software-related challenges.

Furthermore, they discouraged software engineering

teams from giving their inputs at the times when they're
asked to contribute decisions.

It was a brief overview of how we used to develop and

deliver our software services and service products
before we adopted the scrum framework in our
organizations.

Now let's have a look at how we sorted out these chaos

and frustration elements with the help of the Scrum.

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 provide the best possible software they're jointly able to

What Makes The build.

Scrum Framework
Succeed?
The Scrum Framework changes the classic triangle of
project management.
Triangle of Project Management

Organizations do no longer need to sacri ce one of the

time, budget, or quality. The new triangle is now
In the Scrum framework, the factors which de ne when
emerging between the budget, time, and functionality.
a feature is complete and when it meets the required
And none of these project success elements have to be
quality standards are set by De nition of Done (DoD).
endangered.

DoDs specify the expected outcome in terms of

According to the Scrum framework, quality is no longer
functional and non-functional requirements, design,
optional. To deliver what clients are paying for to
coding, unit testing, end-user validations,
ourish their businesses, the Scrum Teams strive to

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 documentation, and so on. DoDs are de ned in the team demonstrates and discusses these increments with
levels of both user stories and tasks. DoDs of user the Scrum Product Owner and client stakeholders to get
stories focus on functional and non-functional client and incorporate their feedback towards the next steps
requirements, whereas DoDs of tasks focus on the of their project.
desired working activities from the Scrum Team
members. This exibility applies to not only software delivery but
also the operational processes. So, the Scrum
The Scrum Team is not allowed to close the user stories, Framework allows the optimization of the use of
and obviously, the tasks that do not ful ll their DoDs. resources (human, time, budget, material) and the
Scrum Product Owner and the Scrum Team de ne user minimization of wastes.
stories and their tasks through-out the course of the
Scrum software engineer-ing process incrementally. Studies have shown that Scrum has the following
positive effects in practice:
This incremental development allows the team to
remain adaptive and adjust their next best actions in a • More frequent code deployments,
controlled manner without the additional costs and • Faster lead time from committing to deploying code,
risks of jeopardizing large chunks of previous work. • Faster mean time to recover from downtime,
• Lower change failure rate,
The Scrum Team builds a potentially shippable software • Better product quality,
product increment until the end of each Sprint. The • Reduced or identical costs compared to pre-Scrum

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 deployment,
• Improved productivity and throughput,
• Improved code and operational reliability,
• Enhanced organizational performance and client
satisfaction,
• Improved market penetration, market share, and
pro tability of organizations,
• Improved market capitalization growth,
• Improved motivation of employees.

Introducing and adopting the Scrum Framework is non-

trivial. And yet, the adaptive and iterative approach of
the Scrum Framework handles this initial burden, and it
copes with ever-changing client and business
requirements better.

Thus, the Scrum Framework is, in most cases, a better

alternative to the classical software engineering
methodologies.

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 Each Scrum Product Owner typically works together

Scrum Roles - The with one scrum team. Each Scrum Team has its own
Scrum Master, and each Scrum Master cares and works

Scrum Team with one single Scrum Team.

Please don't underestimate the importance of

The Scrum Framework recognizes three roles: understanding the purpose and function of these roles
and employing them with adequate talents.
• The Product Owner,
• The Scrum Team Member, Many times we observed that the root cause of
• The Scrum Master. dif culties of a scrum team is either because these roles
are not understood or they don't employ the right
A proper scrum organization must adequately possess people.
people from all these three skillsets. That's particularly
essential to succeed with the scrum software Each of these roles has a de ned set of responsibilities.
development framework. Only if the owners of these roles ful ll these
responsibilities, closely interact, collaborate, and work
None of these roles is dispensable or replace-able. They together, they can nish a Scrum project successfully.
aren't combinable with the other scrum roles and
functions.

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 Scrum Roles & Stakeholders

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 keep in mind that no new team will deliver with the

The Scrum Team highest possible performance right from the beginning.
After setting up the team, it has to go through certain
Within the Scrum Framework, dedicated Scrum Teams
phases as described by the Tuckman-Model: Forming,
do all work delivered to the business clients. A Scrum
Storming, Norming, Performing.
Team is a collection of individuals working together to
provide the requested and committed product
increments.

To work effectively, it is essential for a Scrum Team that

everyone within the team:

• Embraces values of the Scrum Framework such as

Courage, Focus, Commitment, Respect, and
Openness,
• Adheres the same norms and rules,
• Follows the common goal, which wires them to both IT
Tuckman’s Stages of Team Development
and business outcomes.

When setting up a new Scrum Team, you always need to

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 How long it takes until the Scrum Team reaches the

Performing Phase varies from team to team. Hiring good
Characteristics Of A Scrum
basketball players for the same club will not make a Team
good basketball team as soon as they start to play
together. Scrum Teams have the following characteristics:

They rst need to learn and adapt their playing styles, • Team members share the same norms and rules,
their strengths and weaknesses to assist each other, and • The Scrum team as a whole is accountable for the
to play in harmony. Scrum teams are not that different. delivery,
Therefore, it's vital to keep in mind that it usually takes • The Scrum Team is empowered,
about 3 to 5 Sprints until the team becomes mature • The Scrum Team is working as autonomous as it is
enough to deliver its results effectively and predictably. possible,
• The Scrum Team is self-organizing,
• The skills within the Scrum team are balanced,
• A core Scrum Team is small and has no sub-teams,
• The Scrum Team members are dedicated to their
teams with 100% capacity,
• Scrum Team members are collocated, and they ideally
share the same room.

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 • Required level of details to write clear, concise and

Rules & Norms unmistakable De nition Of Dones (DoDs),
• Guidelines to prioritize and estimate user stories and
The environment, business, IT, and geographical
tasks,
ecosystem of Scrum Teams invisibly de ne some of the
• Guidelines, procedures and the level of details to
norms the teams follow. And yet, to become a truly
create living documents,
successful Scrum Team, some rules and norms should be
• Tools to use and tools not to use (remember,
explicitly developed and exercised during the Norming
sometimes less is more),
phase.
• Coding standards,
• Tools and guidelines to build/perform manual/
These common standards are essential, and they can't
automated tests and ensure quality,
be overemphasized to deliver smooth gameplay, IT, and
• The process to resolve bugs,
business results. Otherwise, the Scrum Team members
• The process to handle change requests,
would have to continually switch back and forth between
• The process to prepare to product increment
different value systems and rule sets, and they waste
demonstrations during Sprint Review Meetings,
their valuable time. Just a few examples of such norms
• The process to handle the outcomes of each Scrum
and rules are:
Ritual (Event),
• Frequency, depth, and duration of Backlog
• The goal, scope, duration, location, participants and
Re nement Meetings.
outcomes of Scrum Rituals (Events),

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 into tasks,
Accountability • Who will perform a speci c task and in which order
the tasks are implemented.
The Scrum Team as a whole is responsible for delivering
the committed user stories in time and with the highest
Only if the Scrum Team is empowered to decide these
possible quality.
and similar internal decisions, the team members will
work with higher performance and motivation for the
A good result or a failure is never attributed to a single
interest of their client stakeholders.
team member but always the result of the Scrum Team.

Empowerment & Self- Balanced Set Of Skills

Organization Each Individual within the Scrum Team will most
certainly have specialized skills, focus, and personal
The Scrum Team has to be empowered to de ne preference of interests. However, to achieve the best
possible performance, your Scrum Team needs to have a
• What the team commits to deliver at the end of the balanced set of skills. Only then the Scrum Team will be
Sprint, able to deal with the ever-changing IT and business
• How the committed user stories will be broken down challenges, and they can act as autonomous as it is

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 possible.
Size Of The Scrum Team
That means a Scrum Team should be multidisciplinary
Scrum Teams are small. The ideal size is 7 +/- 2 people.
(designers, developers, testers, architects, etc.) right
from the beginning. On the other hand, this also means
Note that if the Scrum Team contains more than nine
that each team member should learn a little bit from
members, your team will most probably suffer due to
each other's specialization. For instance, to be able to
excessive overhead of alignment and communication.
nish a committed user story until the end of the Sprint,
And yet, there is no one size ts all answer. Your Scrum
a developer should willingly write and execute tests, and
Teams may still productively function even if they have
consult the tester whenever necessary.
less than ve or more than nine members.

The roles of the Scrum Team members are not

The only way to nd this out is to test, learn, and adapt.
compartmentalized like the architect, the developer, the
If you nd out that a team of 13 people cannot perform
tester, and so on. They all share the same title, "Scrum
well enough, then these Scrum Teams need to be split
Team Member" regardless of their core personal
into two teams. These Scrum Teams should closely align,
competencies.
and they correlate their goals and user stories. Besides
that, they work independently.

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 the implementation. In other words, they have to

Collocation create, process, and deliver the Sprint Backlog.
• They have to perform Daily Scrum Meetings.
To minimize unnecessary communication over-head,
• They have to ensure that at the end of the Sprint,
each Scrum Team should be collocated. If the work has
potentially shippable product increment is delivered
to spread over multiple geographical locations,
and demonstrated.
independent Scrum Teams need to be created. These
• They have to update the status and the remaining
teams need to align and correlate their goals and user
work efforts for their tasks to allow the creation of a
stories.
Sprint Burndown Diagram.

Responsibilities Of The
Scrum Team
The Scrum Team has speci c responsibilities they need
to ful ll:

• They have to breakdown the user stories, create tasks,

de ne priorities and estimates, and they self-organize

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 Learning Scrum can be a challenge.

But don’t worry about it. We built our products to help and serve you!

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 somewhere very close to the rest of the scrum team.

The Scrum Master Essential tasks of a Scrum Master are:

Role • To establish the Scrum Framework in his or her

business and IT ecosystem,
The Scrum Master serves all participants of a Scrum • To act as a change agent and support the adaptation
Project and the external stakeholders to comprehend of existing processes to maximize productivity of the
and apply the Scrum Framework correctly. Scrum Team.
• To coach the Scrum Team to understand and live the
He or she supports the Scrum Team to execute the values of the Scrum Framework,
Scrum Framework successfully and contributes them to • To ensure ef cient and close collaboration between
improve their productivity and performance the Scrum Product Owner and the Scrum Team,
continuously. • To remove impediments which hinder the continuity of
work,
The role of the Scrum Master is to establish the Scrum • To lead progress of work by serving,
Process in its organization, the new way of thinking and • To moderate the Scrum Rituals (Scrum Events).
acting. Furthermore, the Scrum Master acts as a change • To guard the Scrum Team from external interference
agent. He or she coaches the team to develop new team and interruptions while the team does work it has
norms and standards. The Scrum Master has its desk originally committed for a Sprint.

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 Easily Learn Scrum and Of cially Prove Your Knowhow

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To effectively do this work, a Scrum Master needs to Since there must be trust between the Scrum Master
possess savvy moderation and coaching skills. He or she and the Scrum Team members, it can always be a good
needs to be a continuous learner to inspire others to idea that the Scrum Team chooses its Scrum Master.
learn, change, and grow. However, in reality, the management usually imposes
who the Scrum Master will be. To get the required trust,
To learn more about Scrum Master's duties as a the Scrum Master should have no line management
facilitator, I recommend you to have a look at this article: responsibility above the Scrum Team members.
If I had 5 Minutes to explain Scrum Master As a Otherwise, open communication in the Scrum Team and
Facilitator. joint ownership of work and decision-making ability of
the Scrum Team can suffer.
The Scrum Master is part of the Scrum Team and acts as
a servant-leader for the Scrum Team. In the beginning,
this will be a full-time job so that the Scrum Master will
not be able to contribute to the Sprint results directly.
Guarding The Scrum Team,
However, after a few Sprints, while the Scrum Team Removing Impediments
approach to the Performing phase of the Tuckman
model, the initial workload as moderator and coach will An essential job of the Scrum Master is to safeguard the
reduce. So, the Scrum Master could actively contribute Scrum Team from a false sense of urgency. Line
to the Sprint goals. management and the Scrum Product Owner often
attempt to add unplanned user stories to the Sprint

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 Backlog while the team focuses on the work of a Examples of removing impediments could be:
planned Sprint.
• To arrange support, resources,
However, one of the critical aspects of the Scrum • To nd missing knowhow, and
Framework is that all user stories are known and • To do hands-on work to help the Scrum Team
committed only during the Sprint Planning Meetings. Members.
The Scrum Team cannot be forced to take over new user
stories. The job of the Scrum Master is to ensure that
until the next Sprint Planning Meeting, these new user
stories are stored in the Scrum Product Backlog.
Scrum Master As A Change
Agent
Alternatively, if the ongoing Sprint does not make any
business and/or technical sense to continue, it can be One of the cornerstones of the Scrum Framework is the
canceled, and a new Sprint can be planned. continuous improvement through Inspect & Adapt.

Scrum Team members should only concentrate on The Scrum Master hosts and moderates the Scrum
delivering client value by building potentially shippable Retrospective Meeting, and his or her job is then to
product increment. The Scrum Master helps by facilitate, control and measure the change of the
removing impediments that block or slow down the identi ed shortcomings.
progress of work.

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 Facilitation Of Scrum Rituals

(Events)
The Scrum Framework de nes several meetings that
have to be organized and facilitated by the Scrum
Master:

• Scrum Grooming (Backlog Re nement) Meetings,

• Sprint Planning Meetings,
• Daily Scrum Meetings,
• Sprint Review Meetings, and
• Sprint Retrospective Meetings

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 a speci c software version, and when the software will

The Scrum Product be released. She represents functional and non-
functional demands from end-users.

Owner Role That means that the Scrum Product Owner has to work
very closely with the Scrum Team and coordinates their
The Scrum Product Owner is a central role within the activities over the entire lifecycle of the project. No one
Scrum Framework. That role uni es product and project else is allowed to impose the Scrum Team to work for a
management tasks, and it's also rmly integrated with different set of priorities.
software development and delivery.

Essential tasks of a Scrum Product owner are:

The product owner's role is far broader than traditional
project management, program management, or product • To manage and clarify project requirements,
management roles. • To guide releases and to ensure return on investment
(ROI),
He or she represents the end customers and/or other • To closely work with the Scrum Team and enable it to
stakeholders and is responsible for maximizing the value deliver the correct work on time,
of the product by ensuring that the Scrum Team delivers • To manage stakeholders and their expectations,
the right work at the right time. The Scrum Product • To manage the Scrum Product Backlog.
Owner decides the software requirements provided for

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 The Scrum Product Owner can delegate certain

activities (like physically maintaining the Scrum Product
Release Management
Backlo g). However, he or she still owns the
The Scrum Product Owner is responsible for reaching
accountability of his or her tasks.
the project goals. He or she creates and maintains the
release plan and decides about deliveries, end-user
functions, and the order they need to be delivered.
Managing The Product Scrum Product Owners often manage the costs and
budget of Scrum Teams too. They collaborate with the
Backlog Scrum Team members to ne-tune, prioritize, and
estimate user stories.
The Scrum Product Owner is the only person allowed to
own the contents of the Scrum Product Backlog. That
means he or she needs to:
• Create, maintain and clearly describe user stories in Stakeholder Management
the Scrum Product Backlog,
• Prioritize user stories to accomplish business goals External stakeholders should not directly bring their
and ful ll the mission of software product, demands to the Scrum Team members. Instead, the
• Ensure that the Scrum Team correctly comprehends Scrum Product Owner should collect and assess
and implements the user stories in the Scrum Product required functionalities with the stakeholders (for
Backlog. instance, with internal clients, representatives of external

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 clients or end-users). The Scrum Product Owner

combines, lters and initially prioritizes these user
stories before he or she discusses them with the Scrum
Team.

Collaboration With The

Scrum Team
For a successful project, the Scrum Product Owner and
the Scrum Team must work very closely. The Scrum
Product Owner is responsible for ensuring that the
Scrum Team members are informed and aligned about
the aimed goals of software they're building.

During Sprint Review Meetings, the Scrum Product

Owner is responsible for inspecting, accepting, or
declining deliverables of the Scrum Team.

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 functional silo of a matrix organization. Developers do

The Scrum Team no longer belong to software development competence
centers, and testers do no longer belong to the software

Member Role testing competence center, and so on.

Regardless of their past coordinates in the organization,

The Scrum Team Members implement the software. members of a scrum team belong to their particular
They jointly decide the number of requirements that scrum project.
they can undoubtedly deliver during a particular product
increment called "Sprint". Now their job is to build the best possible software to
deliver the requirements of their scrum product owner.
A high-performer scrum team has most of the software
engineering skills typically in it. Software developers, Characteristics of scrum teams are:
architects, testers, database administrators, and team
members from all other roles work together. • Empowered and Autonomous,
• Cross-functional,
They jointly build and deliver great software their client • Self-organized and small,
is paying for. • Full-time participants,
• Working in the same room,
Scrum team members do no longer belong to a • One for all, all for one.

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 It’s an excellent time to remind that the Scrum Team

members follow Scrum values persistently.

• Courage
• Focus
• Commitment
• Respect
• Openness

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 Next Steps For The Pursuit Of Growth

“ The Life You Want, The Marriage You Want... The
Family That You Want, Is Going To Be Fueled By The
Business You Build.”

— Russell Brunson, Author and CEO of ClickFunnels

How to Guarantee Your Position As A The economy most likely doesn't even know you exist;
up until now, you only operated as a small part of it, or
Successful Entrepreneur you're just getting started.

I feel that it's now my job to inspire you to actually The government is not going to bail you out on your
implement and execute what you have learned from this dif cult days, and they certainly are not going to help
program. you to advance and conquer on your entrepreneurship
journey while you are setting yourself free.
Let's face it: The big, vast economy is not going to
accommodate you with more opportunities and more Something tells me that you didn't pick up this program
business without you taking some serious initial steps. because you are comfortable or satis ed with where

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 you're in your career and business. Chances are you together, they tend to learn faster and become a
want to change or improve your career, build a side support system for one another. So gather a group of
h u s t l e , i n c r e a s e yo u r l eve l o f ex i b i l i t y a n d like-minded and highly driven people who refuse to live
independence, or you want to simply have much security by the norms of the mediocre. Assemble a group to
and more available options in life and business. discuss this program and brainstorm it with you. Ask your
Otherwise, you wouldn't have nished this program. family, friends, and other like-minded entrepreneurs to
make this program as a team.
Taking the time to pick up this program and study it
suggests that you truly do want to do something Then help one another apply and commit to using the
different. For this, I acknowledge and congratulate you. actions, hold one another accountable to these
commitments. This is the game, and it's the most fun
Well done to you on getting this program. I applaud you game that I've ever played. You now started getting the
for starting it and even more for nishing it. Now, if you skills you need to start building your empire or make it
want the world to give you a standing ovation, put bigger.
lessons in it to work.
During this journey that we've been on together through
Interestingly, one of the most effective ways of this program, we've covered a lot of things, but there
perfecting these disciplines is to help others attain are still a lot I am going to provide you. Everything
success and implement these actions themselves. When you've learned in this program is literally the same thing
people with common goals and motivations come we would discuss and do with you if one of my SkillFront

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 advisors or I had a chance to y to you and sit in your I still remember the excitement as I learned each of
of ce. You now have access to the skills that will unlock these skills and used them for the business for the rst
the path of success in your business and ultimately in time. Whenever I meet someone talking about our
you life. programs and skills they are learning from SkillFront, I
get slightly jealous about how much fun it would be to
rediscover all these skills.

You've just learned what took me a

At this moment, you just of cially became our latest
decade to discover and master SkillFront Entrepreneur. I hope that you had as much
fun learning as I did when I started my own journey.
Tony Robbins often talks about how reading a course is
like taking a decade of someone's life and compressing We will end this program now, and we will be happy to
it down to a day. serve you again with another program.

My entrepreneurial journey hasn't been all sunshine and If you want to get up-to-the-minute ideas, keep yourself
roses. There have been many ups and downs, and I informed about other SkillFront Programs like this one,
fought hard to learn all these skills in this program you follow our pages on LinkedIn, Facecourse, Twitter, and
have in your hands, and all other programs we have Instagram.
released, and we're going to release. It is my honor and
privilege to be able to share them with you. P.S. Don’t forget, you’re just one skill away…

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 Thanks For Learning
With The SkillFront
I want to thank you for taking the time with our program. We hope
you enjoyed studying this lecture as much as we had enjoyed while
we were creating it. It would be our greatest pleasure if we managed
to help you to learn a thing or two, which will guide you on your own
exciting entrepreneurship journey.

This program is a playcourse. Don’t just study it once and go on

with business as usual. Keep it handy and refer to it often. Having
these tactics and using them hand in hand will give you strategies to
grow your business and career geometrically.

And with that … Thank you so much once again, and I wish you all the
success you can dream of.
— Yeliz Obergfell, SkillFront

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