Project Management Tip of the Week

Hello, Jasmine here from LVL Up Consulting with this week's project management tip of the week. And today I'd like to share with you just what is Scrum. You may have heard the term Scrum before and you may or may not have worked in a Scrum manner before, but I'm gonna tell you all the highlights of what you need to know.

So what is Scrum? Scrum is one of the delivery techniques that form part of the AGILE framework of product delivery. And it can be used for both project work or business as usual work just in the nature of how work is delivered. So it does straddle both forms of delivery. What makes it unique? Well, work is delivered in a time box period called a sprint.

If you haven't heard Scrum, I'm sure you've heard the term sprint before. And a sprint essentially is a defined period of time where you're delivering a defined number of tasks. Traditionally, a sprint goes for two weeks but it can also be one week and it can also be longer. But it essentially, it doesn't go forever.

It's usually a short term period. A, a team that's working in a Scrum fashion would generally have a big backlog of tasks that are prioritized and each sprint that happens also called a release, they would bring tasks in via the priority of that backlog to deliver in that time box period of time.

It's a fantastic way to make sure that the right work is being done at the right time. Now, the great thing about Scrum and about Sprints is that they come with some special roles and some special ceremonies. Yes, they're called ceremonies. So the first one is the sprint kickoff. So in the sprint kickoff, everyone that's involved in the sprint gets together and determines what tasks from that backlog will be delivered and by when throughout that sprint period.

The team, then check in during standup meetings. And you traditionally see these happen daily, sometimes at the start of the day. Or they can be every second day depending on what works best for the team. And then last but not least, at the very end of that sprint period the team will do a retrospective.

So they look back on the sprint that was and determined what went well and what could be improved for the next sprint. Because one of the I guess, techniques of Scrum is to continuously improve and get better with your sprints and with your releases of what you're doing in your work. There is a very important role that comes with Scrum and that is called the Scrum Master, which has to be one of my favorite project management roles just by its name.

Now, the Scrum master is very different from the project manager. They are not responsible for the quality and the delivery of work. Their sole purpose is to make sure that the team are delivering within the sprint, per the Scrum methodology and techniques. So they will facilitate all of those ceremonies that I mentioned before.

They will make sure that people are putting accurate and detailed data into their tasks that format Sprint. And they're gonna hold everybody accountable. And again, it's a fantastic way to make sure the right work is being done at the right time. For more advanced Scrum teams they use things like burn down charts and burn up charts to see the velocity of the work that's being completed but essentially deliver work in a defined period of time in prioritized way.

That is Scrum. It's a fantastic agile tool and I really recommend you give it a go if you haven't already. I'll see you next time for my project management tip of the week.