Scrum Life Cycle and Events

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May 29, 2024

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Scrum uses time-boxed events such that each event has a maximum duration fixed. This ensures that no more than a fixed amount of time is wasted on planning. Other than sprints, each event in Scrum is an opportunity to inspect and modify something. These events are also specifically designed to enable inspection and transparency.

The time boxes in Scrum are:

• Release Planning Meeting
• Sprint
• Sprint Planning Meeting
• Daily Scrum
• Sprint review
• Sprint Retrospective
  
  
  

1. Release Planning Meeting

The release planning meeting establishes a plan and goals that can be understood and communicated by the Scrum teams and | the rest of the organization. Release planning answers the following questions:

• Which is the best possible way to turn a vision into a quality product?
• How can customer satisfaction be met or exceeded?

The release plan includes the following:

• Goal for the release
• The product backlog is of the highest priority
• Major risk factors for the release
• Overall product functionality and features for the release
• Approximate delivery date and cost for the release

The organization then monitors the progress and alters the release plan on a Sprint-by-Sprint basis.

Starting with the most important and the riskiest, Scrum uses iterative development. Each sprint creates an increment of the product where each increment is a potentially shippable portion of the entire product. The product is released when enough increments have been created for it to be of value.

Probable outcomes and overall goals are defined in Scrum Release Planning. Estimation and prioritization of the product backlog for release are also done here.

2. Sprint

A sprint is a repeatable work cycle during which a usable and potentially shippable product increment is created. The duration of a sprint is usually one month or less. A new sprint begins immediately after the conclusion of the previous sprint. Sprints normally have similar durations throughout a project.

Sprints consist of:

• Sprint Planning Meeting
• Daily scrums
• Development work
• Sprint review
• Sprint Retrospective

During a sprint:

• The development team remains unchanged
• No changes that would affect the Sprint goal are made
• Quality goals remain unchanged
• The scope of the project may be clarified and worked out between the product owner and development team as understanding improves.
  
  

Each sprint is considered a project with a duration of no more than a month. The increment to be built, the design, and the plan to be followed, are all defined in a sprint.

Sprints enable predictability by ensuring analysis and adaptation of progress towards a goal at least once every calendar month. Sprints also limit risk to one calendar month. When a Sprint duration exceeds one month, the definition of the product being developed changes, complexity arises, and the risk involved increases.

A sprint can be canceled if the sprint goal is discarded. Only the product owner can cancel a Sprint before the Sprint duration is over. The goal may be discarded if market or technology conditions change or if the company changes its direction. In general, a sprint should be canceled if it no longer makes sense under the circumstances. However, this rarely happens due to the short duration of sprints. When a sprint is canceled, any completed product backlog items are reviewed. The Product Owner typically accepts any potentially releaseable work. The incomplete items on the product backlog are re-evaluated. Since the work done on them depreciates quickly they must be re-estimated frequently. Sprint cancellations are uncommon since they consume a lot of resources, as a new sprint will have to be started from the beginning.

3. Sprint Planning Meeting

The purpose of the Sprint Planning Meeting is to plan the work to be performed in the next Sprint. The entire Scrum team collaborated to create this plan. The Sprint Planning Meeting is time-boxed to eight hours for a one-month Sprint and is proportionately shorter for shorter Sprints. The Sprint Planning Meeting consists of two parts, and answers the following questions, respectively:

• What will be the deliverables in the upcoming sprint?
• How will the work be done?

In the first question, the product owner presents the prioritized product backlog items and the entire development team collaborates on understanding the work to be done.

The main topics of interest in this meeting are the product backlog, the previous increment, the predicted capacity of the development team, and the past performance of the development team.

The development team selects the items to be developed from the product backlog since they are the best people to judge what they can accomplish.

After this is done, the Scrum team creates a Sprint Goal. The Sprint Goal is the objective to be met within the Sprint through the implementation of the product backlog, and it serves to guide the development team.

In the second question, after selecting the work to be done during the Sprint, the development team then decides how it will build this functionality into a completed product increment. The product backlog items selected for the particular Sprint along with the plan for delivering them are called the Sprint Backlog.

The development team begins by designing the system. Enough work is planned during the Sprint Planning Meeting and the team assesses the work that can be done in the upcoming Sprint. The planned work is divided into one day or fewer units at the end of the meeting. Both during the Sprint Planning Meeting and throughout the Sprint, the development team self-organizes to carry out the work.

The Product Owner may be present during the second part of the Sprint Planning Meeting to clarify any issues with the chosen product backlog items. The development team may also renegotiate the Sprint backlog items with the product owner if it feels that it has too much or too little work. The development team may also invite technical or domain experts for advice. By the end of the meeting, the development team should be able to explain to the product owner and the Scrum master how it intends to work as a self-organizing team to develop the increment and realize the Sprint goal.

4. Daily Scrum

The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the development team to synchronize its activities. The team creates a plan for the current day by inspecting the work completed since the last Daily Scrum and estimating the work that can be finished before the next one. The Daily Scrum is held at the same place and time each day, to avoid complexity.

During the meeting, each member explained:

• The work completed since the last meeting.
• The work that will be done before the next meeting.
• The obstacles in the way, if any.

The Daily Scrum is used to assess the work completed in the Sprint backlog and the progress towards the Sprint Goal. Daily, the development team should be able to explain how it intends to work together as a self-organizing team to realize the goal of creating the planned increment in the remaining duration of the Sprint, to the Product Owner and Scrum Master.

Even though the Scrum Master ensures that they have a Daily Scrum and have it in the 15-minute inbox, it is the responsibility of the development team to have it daily. Daily scrums improve communication, eliminate the need for other meetings, identify and remove obstacles to development, highlight and promote quick decision-making, and improve the team's knowledge of the project.

5. Sprint Review

A Sprint Review is an informal meeting held at the end of the Sprint to review the product increment and modify the product backlog if required. For one-month Sprints, is a four-hour time-boxed meeting. During the Sprint review, the Scrum team and stakeholders discuss the work done in the Sprint and decide on the course of action for the next Sprint. The team presents the product increment to stakeholders and gets their feedback. The product backlog is revised at the end of the Sprint Review. The product backlog may also be adjusted to accommodate new opportunities.

The Sprint Review includes the following elements:

• The product owner identifies the tasks done and the ones not done, if any.
• The team discusses the aspects that went well during the sprint, the hurdles that were encountered, and how they were solved.
• The development team demonstrated the product increment and answered questions about it.
• The product owner discusses the status of the product and project likely completion dates based on progress so far.
• The entire group collaborates and decides on the activities that go into the next sprint.
  
  
  

6. Sprint retrospective.

The Sprint Retrospective provides an opportunity for the Scrum team to review and create plans for improvement during the next Sprint. The Sprint Retrospective happens after the Sprint Review and before the next Sprint Planning Meeting. For one-month Sprints, the Sprint Retrospective is a three-hour time-boxed meeting and is proportionately shorter for shorter Sprints.

The purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to:

• Review the activities of the previous Sprint about people, relationships, processes, and tools.
• Identify the potential improvement areas and the major aspects that went well in the previous Sprint.
• Devise a plan for implementing process improvements.

The Scrum Master encourages the Scrum team to improve its development process and d practices, within the Scrum process framework, to make it more effective for the next Sprint.

The Scrum team comes up with new techniques to improve the quality of the product and identifies improvement areas during each sprint retrospective.