Posts Tagged - scrum

Status: Certified!

This notes are my watered-down, personal version of The Scrum Guide 2020 and the following Udemy Course: “Preparation For Professional Scrum Master Level 1 (PSM1)” by Vladimir Raykov.

If you want to get ready for the certification exam, I fully recommend buying and watching his course, several times, in Udemy.

Scrum Guide 2020
1. Scrum Guide 2020 Notes
2. Scrum Glossary

“Preparation For Professional Scrum Master Level 1 (PSM1)” by Vladimir Raykov
1. Scrum Introduction
2. The Scrum Team
3. Scrum Events
4. Scrum Artifacts
5. Scrum Practices and Charts
6. A few words before the Exam
7. Recap of key concepts
8. Possible exam questions

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The Scrum Team has become quite experienced, their productivity is high, they can decide to do Daily Scrums just twice a week.

• True (false)
• False (correct answer)

One person can be a Scrum Master in 2 Scrum Teams developing 2 products?

• True (correct answer)
• False (wrong)

The Scrum Master and the Product Owner can be the same person.

• True (correct answer)
• False (wrong)

He can, altough it’s not recommended because of possible conflict of interests.

What is the designer responsible for?

• There is no such a role in Scrum. (Correct answer)
• Designing the Product. (false)

What should NOT happen during a Sprint?

• Changes to the Product Backlog (false)
• Changes to the Sprint Backlog (false)
• A decrease in quality goals (correct answer).
• Changes that would endanger the Sprint Goal (correct answer).

Who attends the Sprint Planning event?

• The entire Scrum Team (correct answer)
• The PO and SM (false)
• The PO and the Developers (false)
• The Developers and Project Manager (false)

Who defines the Sprint Goal?

• The Product Owner (false)
• The whole Scrum Team (correct answer)
• The SM and the PO (false)
• The PO and the Developers. (false)

When is the Sprint Goal created?

• During Sprint Review (false)
• During Sprint Retrospective (false)
• During Sprint Planning (correct answer)
• It’s not mandatory to have a Sprint Goal (false)

Who determines how many items to select for the Sprint Backlog?

• The Product Owner (false)
• The SM (false)
• The Developers (correct answer)
• The Customer (false)
• The Team Leader (false)

Can people outside the Scrum Team attend the Sprint Planning event?

• True (correct answer)
• False (false answer)

What is the duration of the Daily Scrum Event?

• 10 minutes (false)
• The SM and Developers decide what the duration should be (false)
• 15 mins for a 2-week Sprint and 30 mins for a 1-month Sprint (false)
• 15 minutes (correct answer)

The Daily Scrum event is held at the same time and place every working day of the Sprint.

• True (correct answer)
• False (wrong)

During the Daily Scrum the Scrum Master removes impediments?

• True (wrong)
• False (correct answer)

The Developers can discuss and adjust their plan for the Sprint outside the Daily Scrum event?

• True (correct answer)
• False (wrong)

Which of the options below are Scrum Pillars?

• Transparency (correct answer)
• Opennes (false)
• Inspection (correct answer)
• Focus (false)
• Courage (false)

How long should the Daily Scrum be if 9 developers are working on a project and the Sprint length is 2 weeks?

• 30 mintues (false)
• 15 minutes (correct answer)
• 45 minutes (false)
• As long as the Scrum Master decides (false)

If the Scrum Team is mature enough, they do not need Sprint Retrospective anymore.

• true (wrong)
• false (correct answer)

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Read carefully the questions and pay attention to wording. To participate in a meeting is not the same as to attend a meeting (not to talk).

Rules that never change!

• The duration of the Daily Scrum Event is always 15 minutes.
• All the events, except the Sprint can end sooner if their purpose has been achieved. We cannot cut a Sprint before the times expires, unless the PO cancels the Sprint
• The purpose of a Sprint is to create a usable increment. There are no secondary types of Sprints.
• Scrum defines three specific accountabilities (roles) within the Scrum Team: Scrum Master, Developers and Product Owner. There are no team leaders or whatever else. These 3 roles are mandatory. The Scrum Master and the Product Owner can be the same person. The same goes for the PO being a Developer. It’s not recommended, but possible.
• Only the PO can cancel a Sprint.
• There are five events in Scrum: Scrum Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective and the Sprint, which is a container of the events. There are no other official events. Those 5 events are mandatory.
• Nothing happens between Sprints! One Sprint ends, another begins. No downtime. No nothing.
• Multiple Scrum Teams may work on the same product. When this happens, it’s calle Skilled Scrum. Regardless of the number of teams working on the same product, there’s always one Product Backlog, one Product Goal and one Product Owner. There are multiple Sprint Backlogs, and Scrum Masters. Each team can have its own Definition of Done, but together all teams create an integrated Increment, for which there must be one definition.

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Story Points

Story Points are a unit of measure for expressing an estimate of the overall effort that will be required to fully implement a product backlog item or any other piece of work.

Story Points are a relative unit of measurement. The keyword here is relative. A Story is relative in term of Story Points to other Stories.

When we estimate Story Points, we always consider all the work that has to be done. This includes designing, coding, testing and integrating. We also take into consideration the definition of done. If we have special tests, we consider them as well.

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Scrum’s artifacts represent work or value. They’re are designed to maximize transparency of key information.
Each artifact contains a commitment to ensure it provides information hat enhances transparency and focus against which progress can be measured.

Artifact	Commitment	Person accountable
Product Backlog	Product Goal	Product Owner
Sprint Backlog	Sprint Goal	Entire Scrum Team
Increment	Definition of Done	Entire Scrum Team

These commitments exist to reinfoce empiricism and the Scrum values for the Scrum Team and its stakeholders.

The Definition of Done is an artifact. It wasn’t in past versions, but it is now.

The commitments for each Scrum Artifact are mandatory. The person who is accountable for the artifact, is accountable for the commitment too.

The use of the word commitment when describing each artifact is similar in that a team commits to provide for his artifact a Product Goal, Sprint Goal, or Definition of Done.

Each Scrum Artifact is designed to maximize transparency or key information.

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There’re officially 5 events in Scrum:

• The Sprint - container for all the other events.
• Sprint Planning
• Daily Scrum
• Sprint Review
• Sprint Retrospective

All Scrum Events are timeboxed. They all have set a maximal timebox. They enable us to apply the three Scrum pillars.

• Transparency
• Inspection
• Adaptation

All the events, aside from the Sprint, are opportunities to inspect and adapt something. All 5 events are mandatory. We are not allowed to skip any of them in a scrum project.

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Scrum changed the word role for accountability. The reasoning was they wanted to make it very clear that scrum roles are not job titles or job description. The word role is not necessarily wrong.

The Scrum Team

The fundamental unit of Scrum is a small team of people, a Scrum Team. The Scrum Team consists of one Scrum Master, one Product Owner and the Developers. Within a strong team, there are no sub teams or hierarchies. It’s a cohesive unit of professionals focused on one objective at a time, the Product Goal. We have one team focused on one product.

Its critically important characteristics are:

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(This is a recap of points you may see as questions in the exam)

Introduction Summary

1. Remember Scrum is a lightweight framework, that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.
2. Scrum is founded on Empiricism and lean thinking. It’s not based on empirical-criticism, dualism, criticism, rationalism or anything-else-ism. Just empiricism and lean thinking.
3. Three pillars uphold Scrum - We need transparency of the information to do an inspection, which allows us to do adaption.
   • Transparency
   • Inspection
   • Adaption

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(this notes are my watered-down, personal version of the following Udemy Course: “Preparation For Professional Scrum Master Level 1 (PSM1)” by Vladimir Raykov. If you want to get ready for the exam, I recommend buying and watching his course)

What’s SCRUM

Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.

Scrum is NOT a methodology, process or method. It’s a framework. Scrum is based in empirical processes. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what’s observed. Lean thinking reduces waste and focuses on the essentials.

Scrum employs an iterative, incremental approach to optimize predictability and to control risk.

All Scrum items defined here are mandatory. We’re not allowed to skip an event regardless of the reason, the same as we cannot miss a Scrum Master, as the resulting framework cannot be called Scrum.

For the exam, is important to remember that each artifact contains a commitment, and both artifacts and commitments are mandatory.

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This terms represent an overview of Scrum. Some of them are not mandatory, but they’re commonly used in Scrum.

Daily Scrum

Scrum Event that’s in a 15 minute time box, held each day for the Developers. Here the Developers plan their work for the next 24 hours. This optimizes team collaboration and performance, by inspecting the work since the last Daily Scrum.

Definition of Done

A shared understanding of expectations that the Increment must live up to, in order to be releasable into production. Managed by the Developers.

Developers

Role within a Scrum Team accountable for managing, organizing and doing all development work required to create a releasable Increment of product every Sprint

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(Read this several times)

Scrum

Scrum is a framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.

It requires a Scrum Master, to foster an environment where:

• A Product Owner orders the work for a complex problem into a Product Backlog
• The Scrum Team turns a selection of the work into an Increment of value during a Sprint
• The Scrum Team and its stakeholders inspect the results and adjust for the next Sprint

The Scrum framework is purposefully incomplete, only defining the parts required to implement Scrum theory. Rather than provide people with detailed instructions, the rules of Scrum guide their relationships and interactions. Scrum makes visible the relative efficacy of current management, environment and work techniques, so that improvements can be made.

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