A pre-amble to the basics of Scrum

The scrum master course is over, the exam is completed and I had a few days to allow the dust to settle and to re-play many of the discussions we had with Chris Sterling.

I had many questions before I walked into the course, but the most important two were:

• Should we as Visual Studio ALM Rangers consider the scrum framework?
  • Yes, because it allows us to introduce complete transparency across the projects, we can introduce frequent inspections through scrum, review and retrospective meetings and adapt our Rangers projects and processes to introduce continuous improvements to promote productivity, quality and make the projects “fun”.
• Can we make Scrum work for the distributed (across time-zones and continents), virtual and part-time teams working on Rangers solutions?
  • Yes, but we have to carefully analyse and manage the team velocity which will definitely be impacted. There cost introduced through the distributed, virtual and part-time teams must not be under estimated, however, the benefits of agile, transparent and “happy” teams is definitely worth the effort and cost.

So what are the next steps? You should see blog posts covering the following aspects in due course:

• Basics of scrum … Part 1: What are the scrum roles and how do the fit in with the Rangers?
• Basics of scrum … Part 2: What are the scrum time boxes and will we use them our the distributed, virtual and part-time world?
• Basics of scrum … Part 3: What are the scrum artefacts and how will the Rangers use them?

The quick reference poster, as mentioned in Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance Refreshed to include latest Scrum Quick Reference Poster, will be our reference map. Make sure you have a copy handy and that you continue to give us candid feedback on both the poster and our proposed implementation of Scrum in our distributed, virtual, part-time and thus challenging team environment.

See you in part 1 of an exciting journey and discussion :)