Agile Scrum Foundation: Agile Principles and Scrum Methodology

Overview of the Agile method and Scrum model

• The waterfall model: a standard that does not meet the reality of software development in 2021?
• The 4 values and 12 principles of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
• The characteristics of an agile environment: participation, mutual support, clarity and optimism.
• The Scrum framework: an environment where motivation is essential to increasing team productivity.

Starting a Scrum project

• Identifying and engaging internal and external stakeholders in delivering the Scrum project.
• Creating an environment conducive to creativity and high Scrum team performance.
• Aligning stakeholder objectives in project planning and implementation.
• The functions and duties of the Product Owner, Scrum Master and developer team.
• Communicating with the customer to gather feedback on successive Sprint deliverables.

Managing the Product Owner and Product Backlog

• Developing an agile product release and presenting the Scrum project to stakeholders.
• Creating a product roadmap covering objectives, deliverables and different versions.
• Breaking the product down by functionality for the Product Backlog, user stories and story points.
• Managing the Product Backlog: prioritising User Stories for Sprint planning.
• Planning product releases based on the business benefits of each development stage.
• Aligning customer and stakeholder requirements with developers' constraints.
• Traceability of product objectives and business benefits.

Scrum Master role and responsibilities

• The Scrum Master's functions: servant leadership, mediation and trusted coaching for the Scrum team.
• Ensuring the Scrum team follows Scrum principles, procedures and standards.
• Following planning, execution, sprint review and retrospective best practices.
• Removing developers' technical constraints to maximise productivity.
• Simplifying Product Owner activities and improving synergy among Scrum project stakeholders.
• Organising the Daily Scrum to oversee Sprint progress.
• Preparing a daily report on developer performance and productivity using Scrum indicators.
• Supporting teams in implementing agility at the heart of the company.

Building the development team

• Establishing an effective, versatile, self-organising team.
• Encouraging decision-making, communication, sharing and solidarity among developers.
• Breaking down User Stories according to Scrum practices (Fibonacci sequence, planning poker, spike, etc.).
• Breaking User Stories into stages and assessing their workload.
• Creating a Backlog and setting out tasks on a task board.
• Designing the product with a focus on operational development and limiting unnecessary tasks.
• Incrementally and continuously improving developer work in both quality and quantity (velocity).

The agile Sprint stage

• Sprint 0: a short preliminary stage for any project with a predefined deliverable.
• Planning the iteration (sprint theme, Scrum team velocity and business value of the deliverable).
• Continuously monitoring activities through the Daily Scrum and supporting the team.
• Determining the increment (potential deliverable) and the concept of a finished product.
• The Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective events.

The Sprint planning stage

• Conducting the first sprint planning meeting with all stakeholders present.
• Meeting stakeholder objectives in line with the Scrum development team's velocity.
• Setting a sprint goal: a product increment consistent with the previous sprint increment.
• Breaking selected User Stories into tasks and quantifying work effort in reference hours.

The Sprint execution stage

• Optimising achievement of the sprint goal through full development team autonomy.
• Scrum Master support and simplified management of the development team's assignments.
• The Product Owner's role in Sprint implementation and contact with the customer when needed.
• The 3 questions to ask at the Daily Scrum to check Sprint progress.
• Managing and replanning remaining Sprint tasks after the Daily Scrum.
• Stakeholder feedback and creating a new basis for continued product design.

The Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective stage

• The Sprint demonstration (checking task results and validating the product increment).
• Establishing dynamic, open discussions and recording constructive product feedback.
• Updating the Product Backlog and release schedule.
• Reviewing sprint delivery procedures and strategies (what works and what does not).
• Identifying improvement opportunities for the next Sprint and implementing a retrospective backlog with new solutions.
• Continually increasing product quality through higher criteria for defining what is done.

The release planning stage

• The 3 main layers of the planning onion.
• Release planning (measuring the economic value of new features and establishing a deployment frequency).
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Minimum Business Increment (MBI) and Minimum Releasable Features (MRF).
• Validating selected increments according to their compliance or non-compliance with the product roadmap.
• Publishing the first release: the company's choice based on environmental and financial criteria.

Managing agile Scrum project progress

• Assessing project progress using Scrum tools and metrics.
• Key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Using progress charts (Burndown, Burnup, Parking Lot).
• Visualising workflows with Niko-Niko, Kanban boards, visual calendars, etc.
• Engineering best practices (source code refactoring and configuration management).

Applying Scrum to large, very long projects

• Establishing different teams to manage the various product elements.
• The Agile Release Train (ART) within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
• External Scrum teams and virtual Scrum teams (Scrum of Scrums).
• Implementing Scrum within testing teams and technical support departments.

Calculating a Scrum project's forecast budget

• The Time and Materials/Fixed Units formula for agile projects.
• The MoSCoW formula for fixed-cost projects in relation to the Product Backlog.

Exam preparation

• Mock exams under real conditions.
• Group activity with correction.
• Questions and answers.

Taking the EXIN Agile Scrum Foundation exam

• Exam type: 40 multiple-choice questions.
• Duration: 1 hour.
• Open book: no.
• Languages: French, English, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, German, Japanese and Spanish.
• Pass mark: 65% correct answers.