Ten things not in Scrum

Ten things not in Scrum

Jira

How often have you seen a team claiming to be Agile or Scrum due to their use of Jira? Or, to be more precise, Jira and daily standup. Jira is used by many teams, but it is a software tool. It is not required to be used to call someone Scrum Team. You can do Scrum with or without Jira, and even without Microsoft Excel, in my experience.

User Story

“All stories must be written using an Agile format.” Our new lead sent us an email that was similar to this. This email sent me two questions immediately after I read it. What is the “Agile format?” Is this a term that you have heard before? Do I need to write every Product Backlog item in user stories? Ken Beck’s book, “Extreme Programming Explained”, popularized the term “User Story”. The same question is asked again: How many times has the Scrum Guide mentioned the user story? The answer is zero. Scrum Guides uses “Product Backlog Items,” also known by PBI. This term is not restricted to user stories. Although I agree with the value of user stories, we don’t have to use them in the Product Backlog or Sprint Backlog.

Story Point

What is the story point? It is possible that different people will give you different answers. Mike Cohn has provided a definition for story points. “Story points” are a measure that expresses an estimate of how much effort will be needed to implement a product backlog item, or any other piece. There are other topics that can be discussed, such as how story points can be correlated with hours. Let’s look at the Scrum Guide. I didn’t see anything similar to the story last time I looked. Scrum Guide says that Product Backlog items can have attributes such as a description, order and estimate. You can estimate in any way you like.

Velocity

Is it common for the leader to give instructions on how to increase team velocity? I first asked, “What does velocity mean to me if I am a customer?” How can we calculate “velocity” if a story point isn’t in a Scrum Guide? The Scrum team will decide how to measure teams’ performance over time.

Scrum Board

“What’s the difference between a Scrum board and a Kanban board?” This question was asked in a chat. My response was “What’s Scrum Board?” Most teams use some kind of board to visualize the Sprint’s current status. It is included in most Software Tools. However, these boards are just Kanban boards without any WIP limit or swim lane. Scrum Guide does not define Scrum Board. The Scrum Guide does not define what Scrum Board is. Teams can use any tool or information radiator they like, and not be restricted to a particular Kanban board.

Backlog

Let me tell you about a conversation that I had in one of those meetings. “I put it into Backlog.”, “Which Backlog?” “My Backlog.” Confused, I had never heard of the term “my backlog” before. So I asked “Product backlog or Sprint backlog” and got the same answer: “My backlog.”

You can’t count how many times you have heard the term “backlog” during a conversation. Scrum does not define “Backlog”. Scrum Guide defines only “Product Backlog”, and “Sprint Backlog.” Scrum Guide always prefixes “Backlog” with Product or Sprint whenever it appears in the Scrum Guide.

Team

As with Backlog, the definition of “Team” in Scrum Guide is unclear and can cause confusion during conversations. Scrum Guide only describes “Scrum Team”, and “Development Team”. I’m confused and need to clarify what it means when someone says “team”. As with the Product Backlog/Sprint Backlogs, people can infer different meanings from the word “team”, if it is not used in the right context.

In one company, there are multiple product owners and development teams. The relationship between product owners and development teams is complex. This means that one product owner may work with multiple development teams. However, it is not a problem. One development team can also work with multiple product owners. They are violating one of Scrum’s basic rules that the Product Owner is a single person and not a committee. What is the Scrum Team?

Assign

“How was Sprint planning?” I asked one of the Scrum Masters in one of the teams. “Yes, it went very well. We first find out who is going on vacation, then I assign the appropriate user stories to everyone in the team to maintain velocity.” was the reply I received.

Have you noticed any problems? Even if you ignore “Story Point”, “User Story,” and “Team,” the main problem is the way that the work is being assigned. Scrum is a team sport that involves everyone working together towards a common goal. It’s not a push-based system.

Definition of Ready

It’s “Backlog refinement”, and everyone has a copy of the “Definition of Ready” manual in their hands. Discussion is centered around the “Definition of Ready” checklist. Sound familiar? As Mike Cohn explains in his article, “Definition Of Done” is part of Scrum. However, “Definition Of Ready” is not. Sprint planning may cause teams to stop moving stuff from Product Backlog into Sprint Backlog. This is because not all items in “Definition Of Ready” have been checked. It could be interpreted as a waterfall or phase-gate. This should be used by the development team as a guideline to help them better understand the work.

Release Planning

“Release Planning is a longer-term planning process that allows us to answer questions such as “When will we finish?” or “Which feature will I have by the end of this year?” or “How much will it cost?”. It is beneficial and SAFe PI planning also relies on it. However, it may surprise some that “Release Planning”, as it is called, is not in Scrum Guide.