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Agile Basics:
Adoption of Agile is not merely a Skill-set issue, more importantly it requires change in
mindset.
Agile culture promotes the focus on problem and not the person. Basically calls to take the
emotions out of discussion.
Agile is not a mini-Waterfall model. It usually takes 2-4 sprints to get convinced of benefits of
Agile and embrace the benefits.
If you read Agile book and try and apply the same in the work place, it may or may not work.
You have to adapt based on your organization culture, products, mission etc. Adaption is the
key.
In Agile, Sprint duration is usually 4 weeks. Though 4 weeks is not a rigid timeline, it is
usually 4,3, or 2 weeks at least.
In Agile Customers need to be a part of Life cycle, not just one phase.
A general premise for using Agile in project is that if applied correctly, it helps most certainly
to deliver projects on time, per Quality and within budget.
Another premise for using Agile, if you hire the best-Agile lets them be the best.
A full time product owner is necessary without which the Agile fails.
PMI Agile is going to be a new certification launched by PMI in the coming time.
A good book on Agile with Scrum- Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken
Schwaber
Scrum Basics:
In its simplest form, Scrum is a Project Management framework with Agile umbrella.
Usually, the terms Scrum and Agile are used Interchangeably, though Scrum is just one form
of Agile development.
The Scrum word came from Rugby game. In Rugby, the entire teams goal is to take the
ball and make sure it lands in the net.
Scrum usually follows Feature driven development whereas Waterfall usually go for
Component driven development. Cake Analogy- The cake is usually cut from top to bottom
and not horizontally. The Component driven development is like cutting a cake horizontally
i.e. first create DB, Business Layer, UI and the features. The Feature driven development on
the other hand is like cutting a cake vertically.
Scrum moves away from the notion of Heroism. More focus is on Team work. There is no one
hero. Sense of accomplishment comes from the team achieving the great things together
without having one hero.
In Scrum, one needs to build the base components in first few Sprints. The Architects needs
to start a couple of Sprints earlier than Development team.
Its always a good practice to share the knowledge about Agile and Scrum to customer. You
will need customers support to succeed.
Scrum is CMM Level 3.
Some Scrum Terminology:
Product backlog(Requirements from the entire release)
Sprint Planning(usually happens in Day 1)
Sprint backlog (Outcome of Sprint planning)
Daily Scrum(Product Owner, team members and Scrum master should be a part of Daily
Scrum)
Sprint Review (demo at the end of Sprint)
Sprint Retrospective(Postmortem at the end of Sprint)
Product domain expert is usually the Product owner.
Team Velocity is the number of stories created by Team in a Sprint.
In Scrum, the Product burn down chart is used to provide a big picture perspective on the
progress of the project. There is one of the very few metrics used to track the project. This
chart has hours spent in y-axis and Sprint days on x-axis. The progress is plotted on this.
The Focus of this chart is on how much time is left and not actually on how much is spent.

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Role of Scrum MasterUsually serve as a Servant Leader.

Acts as a Facilitator- Helps make sure that the team is following the Scrum properly.
Ideally, a Single Scrum Master should not handle more than 3 Scrum teams at a time.
Scrum Master should be a neutral person, not having any Conflict of Interest.
Scrum Master should have a role in setting up the team.
Scrum Master is a Influencer, Negotiator and Good at Persuasion.
Scrum Master should be accountable for the success of the project.
Scrum Masters can or cannot be Technically sound. It is more of a Servant Leadership role.
More of a Leadership/Management role.