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Scrum

A short, repeating cycle where a small team builds a piece of the product and checks in often.

Source: The Scrum Guide, November 2020 edition (Schwaber & Sutherland).

Role

Product Owner
One person decides what to build next and keeps the backlog ordered.
Crosswalk: 5.3
Scrum Master
One person coaches the team and removes obstacles to its work.
Crosswalk: 9.5
Developers
The people who build the product and decide together how the work gets done.
Crosswalk: 9.4

Event

Sprint
A short, fixed cycle in which the team builds a usable slice of the product.
Crosswalk: 6.5, Rolling Wave Planning
Sprint Planning
At the start of each cycle, the team agrees what it will build and roughly how.
Crosswalk: 6.5, Agile Release Planning

Running it well:

  • The top of the Product Backlog is already refined enough to plan against before the meeting starts, not discovered during it.
  • The Developers, not the Product Owner or Scrum Master, decide how much work they can take on.

Going wrong looks like:

  • The amount of work chosen is set by hope or by pressure from outside the team rather than by what the team has actually finished in past Sprints.
  • The meeting turns into re-arguing priorities the Product Owner already settled by ordering the backlog.
Daily Scrum
A short daily check-in where the team adjusts its plan for the next day's work.
Crosswalk: Meetings

Running it well:

  • It stays inside its timebox and focuses on adjusting the plan for the next day's work, not reporting status.
  • Only the Developers need to run it; anyone else present listens.

Going wrong looks like:

  • It becomes a status report delivered to the Scrum Master or a manager instead of the Developers planning among themselves.
  • It regularly runs long because it drifts into solving problems that belong in a smaller side conversation.
Sprint Review
At the end of each cycle, the team shows finished work and gathers feedback.
Crosswalk: 10.2, Meetings

Running it well:

  • What gets shown is working product, not a slide deck describing it.
  • Stakeholders are actually present and their feedback changes what goes on the backlog next.

Going wrong looks like:

  • The review becomes a rubber stamp because nothing shown is genuinely usable yet.
  • Feedback is collected but never makes it back onto the Product Backlog.
Sprint Retrospective
After each cycle, the team looks back at how it worked and picks one thing to improve.
Crosswalk: 8.2, Meetings

Running it well:

  • The team leaves with one concrete change it will actually make, not a long list of observations.
  • The chosen change is visibly carried into the next Sprint's plan.

Going wrong looks like:

  • The same complaints resurface every retrospective because nothing chosen in a prior one was ever followed through.
  • It turns into blame directed at individuals rather than at the way the work is organized.

Artifact

Product Backlog
The single ordered list of everything that might still be needed in the product.
Crosswalk: 5.4, Decomposition
Sprint Backlog
The slice of work the team picked for this cycle, plus its plan to finish it.
Crosswalk: 6.2
Increment
The working piece of product a cycle adds on top of everything built before it.
Crosswalk: 4.3

Policy

Product Goal
The backlog's long-term objective, describing the future state the product is aiming for.
Crosswalk: 4.1
Sprint Goal
The single purpose the cycle's chosen work is meant to achieve together.
Crosswalk: 6.5
Definition of Done
The shared rule the team uses to agree when a piece of work is truly finished.
Crosswalk: 8.1

Running it well:

  • It is written down somewhere the whole team can see, and it applies the same way to every item.
  • It only grows stricter over time as the team learns what completeness actually requires.

Going wrong looks like:

  • It gets quietly loosened for one item near a deadline so the burndown looks better than the work really is.
  • Different people on the team believe different things count as done.
Self-Management
The team decides among itself who does each piece of work and how.
Crosswalk: 9.4
Scrum Values
Five shared values — commitment, focus, openness, respect and courage — guide the team.
Crosswalk: Ground Rules

Sprint Planning Agenda

  1. Restate the Sprint Goal candidate and check it against the Product Goal.
  2. Walk the top of the Product Backlog and confirm each item is ready to pull.
  3. The Developers select the work they believe they can finish this Sprint.
  4. Break selected items into a plan of concrete tasks for the Sprint Backlog.
  5. Confirm the Definition of Done applies unchanged, or note any exceptions.
  6. Restate the finished Sprint Goal and the Sprint Backlog back to the room.

Definition of Done Checklist

  1. Code (or equivalent work product) is complete and reviewed by someone else.
  2. Automated checks relevant to the change pass.
  3. The result is integrated with the rest of the product, not sitting apart.
  4. Any documentation the change requires has been updated.
  5. The Product Owner has seen it and agrees it meets the Sprint Goal's intent.