Sprint – Scrum Meetings

Quick reference

• 00:03 Hi, this is Ray Sheen.
• 00:05 I need to talk with you about the meetings in the Agile Scrum methodology.
• 00:10 Rather than a heavy reliance on analytical tools and
• 00:13 documentation, Agile scrum relies on meetings to plan and manage the project.
• 00:18 Recall that a key principle of agile scrum is collaboration.
• 00:22 Meetings are where much of that collaboration takes place.
• 00:25 Now, don't start to groan.
• 00:27 These aren't the endless dull meetings where someone drones on and
• 00:31 on about things that are irrelevant, these are directly tied to what you are doing or
• 00:36 will be doing.
• 00:38 Several meetings will typically occur before any sprints are started,
• 00:41 to plan out the project.
• 00:43 These meetings create a high level project plan with the project goal or vision,
• 00:47 and they determine how many releases and sprints will be used in this project.
• 00:51 These meetings are not as well defined as the ones conducted at a sprint level
• 00:56 because these meetings must interface with your existing organizations,
• 00:59 stakeholders and culture.
• 01:01 The project plan, release plan and sprint identification
• 01:04 may be accomplished in one meeting, but it is more likely to take several meetings to
• 01:08 get all of the business leadership onboard with the approach.
• 01:12 The sprint level meetings are much more prescriptive.
• 01:15 They have a very specific purpose and
• 01:17 there are some tools in several of these meetings to make them more productive.
• 01:21 These Sprint level meetings are Sprint planning, to plan the Sprint activities,
• 01:25 the daily Scrum where day to day progress and issues are tracked, the Sprint Demo,
• 01:30 which is the opportunity for stakeholders to interact with the team, and
• 01:33 review results, the sprint retrospective which is the lessons learned session for
• 01:37 the Scrum team, and the sprint refinement which is used to update the product
• 01:40 backlog in order to prepare for the next Sprint.
• 01:44 Let's go through each of these meetings in a little bit more detail.
• 01:47 As I go through each meeting, I will discuss who attends that meeting,
• 01:50 the types of actions or discussion that occur and the outcome of that meeting.
• 01:55 First is the project planning meetings.
• 01:57 These occur between the business team leadership and
• 01:59 the project scrum master and product owner.
• 02:01 We talk about both of these roles in other sessions, but essentially the scrum master
• 02:06 is the process facilitator and keeps the team on track.
• 02:09 And a product owner is the requirements manager who defines, consolidates, and
• 02:13 prioritizes the desired deliverables.
• 02:16 As I mentioned, this is often a series of meetings with different business leaders.
• 02:20 The discussions around the outcomes, that's the overall project goal or vision.
• 02:24 The release planning and
• 02:25 the number of sprints in each release will also be discussed.
• 02:28 During this time, the product owner often creates a high level product backlog as
• 02:32 part of organizing the Sprints.
• 02:34 The next meeting is the first part of Sprint planning.
• 02:37 I've divided Sprint planning into two parts
• 02:40 because they have two very different actions and outcomes.
• 02:42 I often will take a short break between the two parts
• 02:45 to help everyone understand that they have a changed focus.
• 02:49 In the first part,
• 02:49 the focus is to understand the Prioritized Product Backlog.
• 02:53 The Product Owner, Scrum Master and all members of the Scrum Team meet and
• 02:56 the Product Owner describes every relevant deliverable to the team.
• 03:00 These deliverables are referred to as either product backlog items or stories.
• 03:04 I will generally use the term story but either term is acceptable.
• 03:08 The team asks questions about each story to be certain that they understand what is
• 03:12 being requested.
• 03:14 Now on to part 2 of Sprint Planning.
• 03:16 The Product Owner may or may not stay for this session but if they stay,
• 03:19 they must remember that they are only there to answer clarifying questions,
• 03:23 not to challenge the team's estimates.
• 03:25 The Scrum team works down through the prioritized list of stories selecting
• 03:29 a story and estimating the activities and effort needed to do that story.
• 03:33 Based upon the length of the Sprint and the number of team members, the stories
• 03:36 that will hopefully be accomplished during that Sprint are identified as the Sprint
• 03:40 backlog and a Scrum board and burn down chart are initialized.
• 03:44 More about those in a later session.
• 03:47 Next is the Scrum Meeting.
• 03:48 This is normally held daily and
• 03:49 attended by all the Scrum Team members, the Scrum Master and Product Owner.
• 03:53 The Scrum Team reports progress by the number of completed tasks and
• 03:57 any roadblocks.
• 03:58 In addition, they will update the estimates to the remaining work
• 04:01 on the unfinished stories.
• 04:02 The Scrum Master will then update the Scrum Board in the Burn Down Chart.
• 04:06 Next is the Sprint demo.
• 04:08 In this meeting, the Scrum team demonstrates the results of
• 04:11 each completed story to the product owner and
• 04:13 any other members of the business management team that are invited.
• 04:16 This is the only time senior management interacts with the Scrum team.
• 04:20 The Scrum master is there to help facilitate the process.
• 04:23 The Scrum team must also explain the reasons for any uncompleted stories.
• 04:27 Results of this meeting should be what is called a minimally viable product.
• 04:31 Meaning it is something that works well enough that the business team can
• 04:34 decide whether to share it more broadly for further feedback.
• 04:38 The retrospective meeting now happens.
• 04:40 This is the lessons learned session with the Scrum team and a Scrum Master.
• 04:44 They discuss what were the positives and negatives of the Sprint and why.
• 04:48 They then were able to improve the Sprint process on the next Sprint,
• 04:51 which is often about to start.
• 04:54 The last meeting is the Refinement of the product backlog.
• 04:57 Based upon the results from the Sprint demo, the product owner will meet with
• 05:01 business team leaders to revise and update the Product Backlog, both the description
• 05:05 of the stories and the priority, prior to the start of the next Sprint.
• 05:09 Meetings, love ' or hate '.
• 05:13 They're a key part of an Agile sprint, and that is where the communication and
• 05:17 collaboration takes place.

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