Scrum Events & How to run them effectively

Scrum events are meetings but they are called events as they sound more fun and help stay focused on the specific outcomes.

Scrum events happen so that it can increase the transparency and the team can reliably inspect their progress & adapt easily to reach the desired outcome.

The Sprint (Duration: 1–4 weeks)

Is the basic scrum event that contains all the other events . It is a timebox iteration and the duration is defined by the scrum team.

In every Sprint the development team should deliver a product releasable increment.

Which of the following factors should be considered when setting the length of a Sprint’s timebox?

• The expected frequency of changes
• How much overhead (testing and review) goes into delivery of the product
• How much focused time the Developers need to build a backlog item.

All the work necessary to achieve the Product Goal, including Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums (daily standups) , Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective, happen within Sprints.

The Product Owner is responsible for:

-Canceling or changing the sprint duration.
-Setting a Sprint Goal (target).

Sprint Planning (Less than 2 hours / week of the sprint)

At the beginning of the sprint, the scrum team comes together at the Sprint Planning meeting to assess which items from the top of the product backlog they can pull into the sprint. The team drafts a sprint goal that will be accomplished by delivering the selected product backlog items.

The goal helps ensure a shared understanding of the purpose of the work in the coming sprint. Then the team creates the Sprint Backlog.

A task is done if:

• The solution is reviewed by an independent peer
• The product passes all testing requirements
• Documentation is completed
• All user story acceptance criteria are met
• The product owner accepts the user story

So, for a 2 week sprint, the planning should be no more than 4 hours.

Daily Scrum (Less than 15'/daily)

Once the Sprint starts, once a day the developers will have the daily scrum meeting which occurs at the same time and the same place daily to inspect the progress (discuss blockers) and make any adaptations.

Only the development team is mandatory to join, the scrum master joins as facilitator while, the product owner acts as an observer.

The questions that should be discussed are:

• What did I do yesterday that helped the development team meet the sprint goal?
• What will I do today to help the development team meet the team goal?
• Do I notice any impediment that prevents me or the development team from meeting our goals?

Sprint Review (Less than 1 hour / week of the sprint)

Once the spring is complete, the development’s team will deliver a releasable product increment and show it at the stakeholders in the Sprint Review meeting. The sprint review is crucial for inspection and adaptation.

The scrum team invites the stakeholders while the developers showcases the work to the stakeholders and ask them for feedback on how to make the product better. Finally, the scrum team adapts to future plans for the product & updates the product backlog.

For example “X” needs to re-launch their website and one of their backlog items was to create a launch a blog page to send to their existing customers about the new feature.

During the meeting the team discusses the email, the images, the CTA buttons etc. The benefits are:

• Feedback is immediate
• Everyone has a voice and feels like having ownership

So, for a 2 week sprint, the review should be no more than 2 hours.

Sprint Retrospective (3 ours maximum for 4 week sprint or 45'/ week of the sprint)

Finally the team will hold a retrospective to inspect the process and make adaptations in future sprints. It helps the scrum team reflect and identify improvements about how to work as a team.

The questions that should be discussed are:

• What went well in the sprint (regarding people, processes and tools)?
• What didn’t go well in the sprint (improvements worth exploring)?
• How should we improve it?

The steps to create an efficient retrospective are:

1. Gather data and write them at whiteboard notes.
2. Discuss with the team what worked/didn’t work in the sprint
3. Create action plans and follow up on these actions

https://monday.com/blog/rnd/safe-vs-scrum/
https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/scrum-events-how-to-run-them-effectively/266925385