Daily Scrum meeting

Agile ceremonies
Daily Scrum meeting definition

The daily scrum is a meeting for the development team to

create a plan for the day. It is not a status update for
stakeholders! The product owner has no role in the daily
scrum and the scrum master’s accountability is to ensure it
happens, only the development team speak and the time-box is
respected.

The scrum master can help encourage autonomy by

discouraging team members from talking directly at them,
status update style.
Daily Scrum meeting agenda

Each development team member should answer to the following questions (always oriented to the
Sprint goal):

What did I do yesterday that helped the development team meet the Sprint goal?
1

What will I do today to help the development team meet the Sprint goal?
2

Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the development team from meeting the Sprint goal?
3
Scrum master responsibilities

1. Lead the scrum meeting, ensuring the time boxing

2. During the meeting, follow-up in the tool the US that the engineer is referring to

3. Make sure of having the team answering the 3-questions agenda around the sprint goal

4. Request clarification if some status is not clear

5. Help to find ways to be on time or unblocked to anybody in the team that reports a delay or a
blocked task

6. Coordinate separated meetings for other topics

7. Maintain the team focused

Daily Scrum meeting
Best Practices Bad -habits

Remain standing!
1 1 Waiting for latecomers

Answer the 3-question agenda around the

2 Sprint goal 2 Lack of time boxing - letting people ramble

Have the project management tool visible. Skipping questions. Answering only the first
3 Have the team update their user stories before 3 question is a sign of a status meeting
the start of the meeting

Everything some in the team say should be Introducing new ideas. The scrum is not a
4 valuable to everyone in the room
4 planning meeting
Backlog grooming meeting
Agile ceremonies
Backlog Grooming meeting - Definition
Backlog grooming, also known as story refinement, is primarily for improving the Product
Backlog. The purpose is to get the stories “ready” for sprint planning sessions

A story is ready when:

• It is completely groomed
• Acceptance criteria is written
• There are no open questions/impediments attached to it

Objectives of backlog grooming

• Break down large user stories into smaller tasks.
• Remove user stories that are no longer relevant to the delivery of the final product
increment
• Create new user stories based on newly discovered needs.
• Discuss user stories with the team, answer any related questions to smooth out any
ambiguity.
• Redefine Title, Description, Acceptance Criteria, in every User Story
• Estimate stories and assign story points (Sometimes, but not always).
Backlog grooming meeting - Preparation

Product Owner
• Prioritize Product Backlog
• Set goal/plan for the session.
• Prepare and send a list of stories that will be groomed ahead of time and ask the team to review and
come prepared with questions, tasks, hours, etc.

Scrum master
• Verify that PO has prepared all User Stories in backlog sorted by priority
• Verify that PO has defined a goal for the meeting and he sent the list of Uss to the team

Team
• Review the Stories sent by PO and prepare questions if needed
Backlog grooming meeting - Moderation

Product Owner
• Present the ideas and the goal for the session.
• Introduce every Product Backlog items and their Definition of Done.

Scrum master
• Introduces the agenda.
• Indicates the time-box likely required for discussion of each Product Backlog item
• Review every US information (title, description and Acceptance Criteria) and make sure that it is clear for the team,
requesting clarification to PO when it is needed
• Get an effort estimation in points from the team (optional)
• Tag the groomed USs or move them to the groomed backlog

Team
• Discuss every Product Backlog item with the Product Owner.
• Estimate each Product Backlog item in turn using techniques like Planning Poker. (Optional)
• Break-down the Product Backlog items into smaller pieces, through collaboration with the Product Owner, to ensure that
each item can be committed to for completion within a single Sprint.
• Communicate to the Product Owner any consequence relating to what is being asked for and its rank-order for delivery,
including any technical, design or business debt that may be incurred as a result.
Backlog grooming meeting - Output
A “DEEP” product backlog is the key outcome
of a backlog refinement session

Detailed Appropriately: Enough

1 contextual information to be
understood and discussed by the
cross-functional team
Emergent: It is easy to add
2 new stories and items as new
information arises

Estimated: The amount of

3 effort involver with each user
story is roughly estimated

Prioritized: Items on the backlog are

4 ranked based on their value and the
strategic purpose(s) they serve
Sprint Planning meeting
Agile Ceremonies
Sprint planning meeting - Definition
This meeting helps set the context of the sprint by scoping the product owner goals for this sprint.

It also prescribes the priority for the stories, based on available bandwidth/capacity to meet the goal and
deliver the incremental value to the product.

Sprint Planning answers the following:

• What can be delivered in the Increment resulting from

the upcoming Sprint?
• How will the work needed to deliver the Increment be
achieved?
Sprint planning meeting - Preparation

Product Owner
• Review current situation (product vision, roadmap, release plan, etc.) as needed
• Plan a sprint Goal (short description of what the sprint will attempt to achieve).
• Create a Sprint backlog proposal
• Verify that each user story in sprint backlog has enough details (verify if the US has been groomed)

Scrum master
• Verify that PO has a goal and Sprint backlog proposal created
• Ask the team members to update the boards
• Update SpoilOver (carried over) Stories in the tool
• Have the team capacity ready

Team
• Review candidate backlog items for the sprint in the tool management and prepare questions if needed
• Define the individual capacity (story points), reviewing if there is any special circumstances this sprint to
consider, like holidays, time off, trainings, company events, big demo, etc.
Sprint planning meeting – Moderation (Session 1 -- WHAT)

It is recommended to split the Planning session meeting in two sessions:

• Session I goal: Discuss the what
• Session II goal: Discuss the how

Product Owner
• Present the sprint Goal
• Navigate the Sprint backlog by priority
• Clarify doubts

Scrum master
• Moderate the meeting

Team (Development, QA, UX/UI)

• Understand the Sprint goal
• During the backlog items review, ask questions to clear any ambiguity
• Check for dependencies between Uss or any risks that the team need to be aware for the sprint
• Analyze UX work for the Sprint backlog planned and identify dependencies
Sprint planning meeting – Moderation (Session II -- HOW)

Product Owner
• Navigate the Sprint backlog by priority

Scrum master
• Address to the team to plan their tasks for each backlog item
• Make sure of having an effort estimated for every US in the Sprint. (All team should agree with the estimation)
• Validate capacity, resource allocation

Team (Development, QA, UX/UI)

• Take part in technical discussion during estimation or planning poker, have always the final say.
• Define tasks for each Backlog item
• Commit to the workload (Do not commit more than you can not deliver)
Sprint planning meeting – Carried over and How to handle it
There are different causes to have carried over Uss, but the following 5 are the main cases that the team should avoid:

Not tasking - The action of tasking is how we actually create a plan. We encourage teams to create
1 tasks no bigger than a day,

Don’t Understand the Work Before Planning - A best practice is to do Backlog Refinement on a
2 regular basis in preparation for upcoming Sprints.

Too many Dependencies – to have a better plan to manage dependencies, we should have all the
3 people we need to get the work done on the planning meeting

No Known Velocity - You cannot improve what you cannot measure. The team should size their
4 backlog in story points and measure velocity

Working in Silos - The goal of Scrum is Shared Team Ownership, where everyone works together
5 with a shared commitment to the success of the Sprint. If we work in silos in a waterfall, we have a
high probability of carrying work over into the next Sprint and big items.

How to handle the carried over User Stories in yourday:

“Award partial story points for what has been done, and adjust the size
down of the original story, based on an estimate of what work remains”
Sprint planning meeting - Output

1 A Sprint goal

2 A Sprint backlog

Important:
• The team selects how much work they can do in the coming sprint. The product owner does not get to say,
“We have four sprints left so you need to do one-fourth of everything I need.” We can hope the team does that
much (or more), but it's up to the team to determine how much they can do in the sprint

• If some PBI has to be introduced in the middle of the sprint, the product owner should approve it.
Sprint Retrospective meeting
Agile ceremonies
Sprint Retrospective meeting - Definition

This meeting enables the feedback loop to achieve continuous improvement. No matter how mature your team is,
opportunities of improvement is always there. This meeting gives the freedom to all member your team to speak about
what they feel can be improved, or what they feel can be stopped.

Goals:
Retrospective helps the team to incorporate continuous improvement
1 into our team culture and into our Sprint cadence. This is where the
Scrum Team meets to reflect on their previous Sprint and to figure out
how to improve as a team.

2 If there is carry overs, analyze the causes and discuss them during
this meeting
Sprint Retrospective meeting - Preparation

Scrum master
• Have the Sprint burndown ready
• Have the action items agreed to accomplish in previous sprint
• Create a new page in the tool used to save the retrospective notes. It should contain the following categories:
• What went well | Keep doing
• What can be improved | Stop doing
• Suggestions to improve | Start doing
• Action items
• Review all incomplete stories (spillovers) to analyze them during the meeting

Team and Product Owner

• Prepare your own note listing the good and bad factors detected during previous Sprint
Sprint Retrospective meeting - Moderation

Scrum master
• Analyze the burndown chart with the team
• Discuss about the reason of having items carried over
• Review with the team if the action items agreed to accomplish in last retrospective where actually accomplished
• Capture the retrospective points from all participants, organizing them in the corresponding categories
• Get the voting from team
• Prepare the action item. It is suggested to take the top 3 voted retrospective points.
• Assign some one in the team as owner of the action item with an ETA.

Team and Product Owner

• Provide the retrospective points
• Provide their vote for the cards they feel most important to resolve
Sprint Retrospective meeting - Output

1 Retrospective notes board

2 List of action items for the Sprint

Sprint Review meeting
Agile ceremonies
Sprint Review meeting - Definition
Sprint Review Meeting also known as Sprint Demonstration usually held on the last day of the sprint to
demonstrate the accomplishment from the specific sprint commitment.

Tips for a good Sprint review Mistakes

• Product Owner acting as a client - A good PO would be
• Gathering feedback and insights – Treat all feedback as
more active in giving feedback during the sprint. In fact,
welcome feedback, especially from stakeholders
the best sprint reviews are facilitated by the product
owner!
• Review, assess, and adapt from the previous sprint
• Show stories that are not finished - The only items of
• Make the demo an informal one, but make sure that it
value are features that are completely finished.
is visible by all at the meeting
• No stakeholders or product owner present for the
• Never say never to a new feature or enhancement
ceremony
request. Always put it on the backlog
• Going into the ceremony unprepared
• Make sure the right stakeholders are present.
Generally speaking this is a responsibility of the
• Focusing on the technical details too much
Product Owner (Provides vision) and the ScrumMaster
(Resolves impediments).
Sprint Review meeting - Preparation

Scrum master
• Create the agenda coordinating with the development team
• Make sure of having the Sprint goal visible in the agenda
• Send the sprint review agenda for each sprint, 1 or 2 days in advance to product owner, so PO can invite to
Stakeholders and they can decide whether to: Join the Review Meeting, Not to Join the Review Meting or Invite
other Management people or Business Sponsor or additional stake holders
• Verify that the Infrastructure needed to demonstrate working software is ready

Team
• Preparing for the meeting – should not spend more than 1 hour

Product Owner
• Invites the key stakeholder in advance. PO is the best person to send the invitation
Sprint Review meeting - Moderation
Scrum master
• Start the Meeting – Welcome, Introduction
• Highlight the scope of Demonstration
• Confirm location and date of the next Sprint review

Team – Product Owner

• Demonstrate the new functional Increments (PO can also made the demonstration)

Stakeholders
• Review the increments, Accept increment(s), suggest new changes for future sprint, or reject the increment (Partially or full y)
to be deployed
• Identify new functionality to be added to the Backlog
Sprint Review meeting - Output

1 Increment Inspection & adaptive backlog

2 Transparent Business Vision

3 Up to date prioritized backlog

4 New backlog items

5 Team motivation by appreciation (very important point that PO should not neglect)

6 Resolution of any incomplete Backlog items

Sprint Review meeting – Post meeting Activity
Scrum master
• Send a summary that includes: All story demonstrated, New Backlog Item Introduced, the change in business vision if any.
The details of new priority, mention the team member appreciated and for what.

Product Owner
• Discuss Future Sprint Scope
• Create the User Stories for the corresponding New Backlog Items identified
• Re-Prioritize Backlog Item
Summary of all ceremonies in scrum:
References
https://dzone.com/articles/practical-steps-to-an-efficient-backlog-refinement
http://blog.scrumstudy.com/learn-how-to-conduct-an-effective-backlog-grooming-session/
https://www.clearlyagileinc.com/agile-blog/best-practices-of-successful-sprint-grooming
https://luis-goncalves.com/grooming-backlog/
https://www.productplan.com/glossary/backlog-grooming/
https://sprint.ly/blog/scrum-meeting-best-practices/
https://standuply.com/blog/scrum-meeting/
https://www.yodiz.com/blog/best-practices-for-sprint-planning-meeting-in-agile-project-management/#post/0
https://www.yodiz.com/blog/agile-methodology-and-sprint-planning-rules-and-best-practices/
https://platinumedge.com/sites/default/files/public/Sprint-Planning-Checklist-Platinum-Edge.pdf
https://medium.com/@LeapFrogSystems/the-sprint-review-tips-for-the-best-scrum-ceremonies-ever-92b677faf5bd
https://co-learning.be/blog/most-common-mistakes-in-scrum-ceremonies-57-the-sprint-review/22042013
http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/504394/documents/ScrumMeetingChecklist.pdf?t=1436560937693
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