What is Scrum Framework?

The success of a product development project depends on many aspects in which choosing the correct framework is one of the crucial things. The proper framework will drive you on the correct path by effectively managing things such as starting a project, keeping things on track, maintaining consistency, and so on. With a correct framework, you can reduce risks in the product development process and deliver high-quality and efficient products.

If you are into product development that involves complex processes and demands a constant driving force to deliver products successfully, Scrum Framework will be greatly helpful to you. Especially when it comes to agile projects, you are aware that they demand advanced tools and frameworks to deliver quality products with consistency. That’s why Scrum is a widely used framework across agile projects.

Intense focus and continuous adaptation are the basic principles of the Scrum Framework. It ensures little and incremental progress of work during product development. In other words, it uses sprints to develop products on an incremental basis and deliver them quickly.

All right! This blog covers all you need to know about Scrum Framework. It includes pillars of Scrum, its values, components of the Scrum Framework, and its benefits.

What is Scrum Framework - Table of Contents

• Pillars of Scrum
• Scrum Values
• Scrum Framework
• Why Scrum Framework?
• Components
• Scrum Team Roles
• Benefits

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What are the Pillars of Scrum?

Scrum is built on three strong pillars: adaptation, inspection, and transparency. Let’s have a brief about the pillars below:

• Adaptation: Scrum offers you the flexibility to adjust plans as well as reprioritise work items even while you develop products.
• Inspection: It allows teams to evaluate the progress of tasks in short intervals. In particular, teams can conduct daily meetings. As a result, teams can ensure that all tasks are being completed as expected. And they could easily remove obstacles in the development process and ensure delivering quality products at the end.
• Transparency: All team members are open to each other. They always communicate and exchange ideas with each other. Not just that, every team member is evident across the product goal, work items, roadmap, etc.

What are the Scrum Values?

There are five core values that Scrum insists teams follow while developing and delivering products.

Let’s have a look at them below:

• Focus:  Scrum insists teams focus on every part of the development journey. In return, they can reach their goals as quickly as possible.
• Courage: Scrum encourages teams to take on complex projects. Not only that, they can complete the projects. Changes in plans due to new requirements are accepted in the middle of product development.
• Commitment: Teams are always self-motivated. They complete assigned tasks on time. No doubt they are dedicated to delivering efficient and quality products.
• Openness: All work items and tasks are transparent to all team members. They are prepared to collaborate with other members. They hold short and regular meetings where they discuss progress as well as challenges with an open mind.
• Respect: Members understand that everyone's contribution is valuable in successfully delivering products. So, they respect each other, use the strengths of others, and remove blockers in the development process together.

[ Check out Principles of Scrum ]

What is Scrum Framework?

Scrum is a lightweight framework with which you can achieve adaptive and practical solutions to complex problems. Scrum Framework is an effective project management tool that works based on the principles of focus and adaptation. In addition to that, this framework allows work to be completed on an incremental basis. As a result, it supports development teams to deliver quality products in short cycles.

Know that the Scrum Framework comes with crucial components such as Scrum team and roles, Artifacts, and Events. All these components work together to deliver quality products. The remarkable thing about this framework is its adaptability. You can adjust the plans and reprioritise work items based on new requirements as and when required. It’s no wonder the Scrum Framework encourages accountability, flexibility, and teamwork.

Why Scrum Framework?

Let's find out why Scrum Framework is used to simplify complex and agile projects.

Here we go:

• With Scrum Framework, all team members have the freedom to plan, structure, and manage their plans by involving them in every stage.
• Plans are usually well-defined but, at the same time, not rigid. Teams can adjust the plans based on new requirements.
• Scrum Framework allows team members to work closely as a single, cohesive, and productive unit.
• It encourages open communication between team members and transparency in work progress.
• Above all, it drives continuous learning and improvement.

Components of Scrum Framework

Let’s discuss the components of Scrum Framework, such as Scrum Artifacts, Scrum Team and Roles, and Scrum Events in the following:

First, we will start with Scrum Artifacts:

1. Scrum Artifacts

In its basic form, artifacts represent work or value. It can be a prototype or byproduct. It helps to realise what works are completed and what is pending to deliver an end product. Besides, it provides transparency, opens up possibilities to inspect the project's progress, and implements adaptations based on feedback.

2. Product Backlog

A product backlog consists of a list of product features, product requirements, etc. Every product backlog has a product goal and a list of work items that must be completed in a specific order. It is a single source where you can find the ‘To-Do’ list to meet the product goal. Generally, a product manager manages the product backlog. They prioritise and reprioritise work items based on requirements.

Another essential thing to note is Backlog refinement, which is nothing but a fine-tuning process in which you can break down the product backlog items into even smaller pieces of work. Doing so allows you to get more visibility across the project and complete the work items effortlessly.

3. Sprint Backlog

It consists of the sprint goal, the product backlog items for the sprint, plans for delivering increments, and user stories. Usually, the Scrum Master prepares the Sprint Backlog by working with the product owner and developers. You can update the sprint backlog during a sprint.

4. Sprint Goal or Increment

Increment refers to good work completed at the end of a sprint. In a way, it is the indicator of progress or the stepping stone towards a product goal. Know that the collection of increments forms a product goal.

5. Burndown Chart

The visual graph represents the relation between the works to be completed and their respective timeframes involved in a sprint. Here, Y-axis represents the works to be completed, and X-axis represents their timeframes. The graph will touch the X-axis sharp when the works are completed in the given timeframes.

Next, we will look at scrum teams and roles in detail.

[ Also Check out Scrum Workflow ]

Scrum Team Roles and Responsibilities

Essentially, a scrum team is a small group that consists of a scrum master, product owner, and developers. It is usually cross-functional since it includes testers, designers, UX developers, DevOps engineers, and developers. And there are no sub-teams or any hierarchical system. Mainly, a scrum team focuses on a single goal at a time.

1. Product Owner

Always product owner is a single person who plays a significant role in Scrum Framework. The product owner interacts with all stakeholders, such as the scrum master, clients, and developers. He /She plays a prime role in product development. First, the product owner develops the product goal, prepares and manages product backlog items, creates user stories, and then prioritises the backlog items based on their importance.

In the next step, the product owner communicates the product backlog items with all the team members. Based on feedback, the product owner adjusts the list of items and their priority. The product owner should ensure that the product backlog is visible, clear, transparent, and understood by all team members.

The product owner guides the team from the beginning to the end of the development process. This is because they are accountable for product delivery with the expected outcomes. Simply put, they ensure the Definition of Done (DoD). The end product or increments should meet its defined features and outcomes without deviation.

2. Scrum Master (SM)

A Scrum Master is also a project facilitator. The SM is responsible for creating Scrum for teams. In other words, the SM plan and manage the scrum event, such as sprint planning, sprint reviews, daily sprints, and sprint retrospectives.

At first, the SM coordinates with the product owner and teams to build scrums. Not only that, SM trains product owner and teams about Scrum. SM constantly follows the work progress to ensure everything is on the right track. Also, SM trains team members on self-management, which helps ensure team effectiveness.

Moreover, the SM effectively addresses impediments in the development process and takes measures to remove them as soon as possible. Also, They ensure scrum events are productive and completed within timeframes. In short, the SM ensures smooth progress and consistency in a sprint by thoroughly understanding the backlog items.

[ Related Article: Scrum Master Roles and Responsibilities ]

3. Scrum Team or Development Team

It is a self-organized and self-motivated team that includes developers as well as testers. Know that a typical scrum team consists of only 5 to 7 members. And the members are cross-functional and will have different skill sets. No one must be a bottleneck in the progress of the sprint.

The scrum team builds the sprint backlog, which is simply a plan for the sprint. They work together, making incremental progress toward the end product by sticking to the plan. Even if there are slight changes, they adapt to the sprint plan to ensure the quality of products.

At last, we will learn the third component, scrum events, in the following:

4. Scrum Events

Scrum events are yet another component of the Scrum Framework. They are conducted to bring regularity into product development. Generally, meetings are time-bound, so you cannot increase or decrease time. Every event is a chance to inspect artifacts and decide on further progress.

Let’s take a look at the various scrum events below.

5. Sprint

Essentially, a sprint is a short timeframe that is required to deliver an increment. The timeframe can be a week, fortnight, or a month – but not more than a month most of the time. It consists of all the events required to complete the project. Changes in sprints are not usually encouraged. A new sprint starts without a break once the current sprint is over.

6. Sprint Planning

It is the event or meeting in which team members prepare a roadmap for a sprint. The scrum master will head it, and he/she prepares the sprint goal by discussing it with product owner and team members. This roadmap includes the product details, what is needed, its values, and how to develop a product. Sprint planning involves all the team members deciding on project goals and the work items that must be smoothly completed to meet the goals. The significant thing is that developers have the freedom to use suitable methods and techniques to reach their goals. 

7. Daily Scrums

It is a sort of standup meeting. A daily scrum is nothing but a short meeting or event. This is where team members discuss the previous day's work and plan for today. They discuss project progress and obstacles in it. Daily scrums may last for 15 minutes every day in the same place and time.

Daily scrums help to remove blockers in a sprint altogether. Also, they ensure all the team members are on the same page and aligned with the sprint goal. If needed, team members adjust spring backlogs to adapt to the project goals. Daily scrums improve focus, communication and collaboration, self-management, and performance.

8. Sprint Review

It is a time-boxed event or meeting that can last for a maximum of 4 hours for a one-month sprint. You can conduct a sprint to review the increment. Based on the review, you can decide on future adaptions. For instance, you can adjust the product backlog to make new possibilities.

9. Sprint Retrospective

It is a time-boxed event or meeting that can last for three hours for a one-month sprint. The aim of conducting a sprint retrospective is simple – continuous improvement. In the sprint retrospective, the performance of people, tools, and methods are analysed thoroughly. This is where team members discuss improving product quality and efficiency. In other words, they discuss the positives and negative things of the last sprint. This event helps to make continuous improvements.

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Benefits of Scrum Framework

Let’s summarise the merits of using the framework in projects as follows:

• High-Quality Products: You can produce quality products using the Scrum Framework, which encourages continuous improvement.
• Improved Teamwork: Teams prepare artifacts, review progress, etc., unitedly. No single member is left to make plans, discuss progress, and remove bottlenecks. Team members are open to all, they respect each other, use the strength of other members, collaborate, and remove obstacles together.
• Flexibility: Product expectations may change during a sprint. However, members adapt to changes through reprioritising works with which they can ensure producing quality products.
• Risk Mitigation: Of course! Teams can reduce risks at early stages through frequent reviews and artifacts. Failures in sprints indicate the failure of ideas without a doubt.
• Quick Delivery: Teams with well-defined sprints support quickly delivering quality products with all the required features.
• Increased Productivity: What’s more! Clients can achieve high ROI simply because continuous feedback and reviews help to eliminate failures or reduce defects in the development process. Besides, quick delivery of products saves time and costs significantly.

Conclusion

Let’s wrap off! Scrum Framework is a fantastic tool for solving complex agile projects. Though the learning curve is steeper at initial times for scrum teams, it will go low at later stages. Employing an effective product owner and scrum master with good leadership skills is crucial while implementing Scrum Framework. It's worth pointing out that you can quickly produce quality and effective products by embracing Scrum Framework.