Week #3 – Working in SCRUM
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This week I want to write about how the agile methodology Scrum. As a short introduction, Scrum is an agile framework mostly used in software development. Unlike more “traditional” project methodologies like the common “Waterfall” method in which the whole project is planned out, executed and closed. In Scrum focus lies on working iteratively in “sprints” (usually 2-4 week long periods of work) and staying flexible to changing requirements in the project over time. A big part of this is to have daily stand-up meetings, called daily “scrums”. In addition work is planned out only for each sprint based on a so-called project backlog where User Stories are ranked in order of importance and then picked out for development by the team in coming sprints. We adopted this in Team Archon at the start of this semester for the Shoot-em-up game project. Right away we faced some difficulty of getting comfortable in this new way of working as our previous experience of Scrum was very limited to say the least. I found my own situation as the team’s producer especially difficult, as I was expected to lead the team in this new form of working. It turned out that the design minor students had learned some parts of Scrum in their minor classes previously in the fall term. This created an interesting dynamic where we were scrambling to understand the rationale behind the Scrum framework as we were implementing into our workflow. A less than ideal situation when simultaneously trying to complete a time-sensitive project. All has not been negative with working with Scrum, quite the opposite in truth. As we learned more about the practices and the philosophy behind them, the team’s communication (that was previously quite lacking) has improved noticeably thanks to the daily stand-ups/scrums giving us the ability to meet in person at least once a day. Another benefit introduced with Scrum is that we all have the ability to have an overview of what everyone is working on in any given sprint. The sprint backlog (list of items to be completed during a week) is available to all team members. This used in combination with the daily stand-ups has allowed us to have a much better insight into each other’s tasks than we had during the previous project. Finally, in my role as a Project Manager I have enjoyed the Sprint Reviews extensively. They provide the team with a place and time to reflect on the past week and the work done. I try to keep these meetings informal as to provide a more open environment where everyone should feel safe to bring up suggestions for changes, comment on things that have gone poorly etc. For this I took to using the “Start, Stop, Continue” toolkit in Scrum. Here we talk about what to Start doing (suggestions on new practices, tools etc.), Stop doing (things that haven’t worked and should be avoided in the future), and Continue doing (things that have worked well and should be in place in the future). This has kept the discussion focused and led to some improvements being implemented throughout development. Many times I noticed that the team members had similar ideas on what to Start and Stop which seemed to improve the willingness to actually work towards changes. That is my two cents on working with Scrum so far, thank you for reading!
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