Scrum - introduction
In this lecture, let us focus on the relevance of Scrum in today's
industry and your career and align your expectations regarding this course.
First of all, why Scrum?
From a global perspective, as you can see here, Scrum is very popular.
In terms of Google searches, Scrum has surpassed the PMP, the project management
professional certification from the Project Management Institute, and Prince2.
Further, Scrum is the most applied framework to manage
agile initiatives and projects!.
Organizations recognize the value of professionals with Scrum
skills by offering high salaries.
Given this, the interest in learning Scrum has grown a lot.
People usually take a Scrum course and expect to learn the basic
Scrum concepts such as Sprint, Product Backlog, and so on.
Thus, what do you think you will achieve in this course?
First, learn about agile management.
Second, dominate the fundamental principles and main Scrum techniques.
Third, have one more tool in your toolkit.
In this case, use Scrum and agile techniques to solve real-world problems.
Fourth, one more certificate, which might be helpful for your portfolio.
And fifth, enhance your CV.
But guess what?
Anyone can learn those.
Anyone can achieve those.
Therefore, of course, this course covers all the technical Scrum concepts.
However, this information must be a means to an end, not the destination.
Do you know what really makes a difference for you?
Is having the confidence of putting this knowledge into
practice in strategic moments throughout your professional career.
And this focus is the most significant difference between this course and
the other ones you find online.
This course is the course that I wish I had taken before I got my first Scum
Master job more than 10 years ago.
In this course, we will simulate executing a project..
And when I say us, I mean us, you and me.
My goal with this course is not to fill you with theory or only get
you ready for passing an assessment.
I want to enable you.
I want to give you actual and concrete results.
I want you to experience Scrum; to have you apply Scrum to your domain.
You will leave this course not only being ready for taking a professional
certification assessment but also to apply Scrum in practice in your workplace and
have you make a difference out there.
It doesn't matter if you're an architect, a software engineer, a
marketing professional, or whatever.
Regardless of your domain, you will be able to follow along
with this course, applying Scrum to your real-world projects.
While I teach you and use the agile and Scrum techniques and methods for
my example project, you will be able to apply them to your project simultaneously.
This course goes beyond a regular Scrum course by including bonus courses
that introduce you to essential agile and lean practices, such as Kanban
and soft skills vital to succeeding in the current workplace, including
leadership, negotiation, and productivity.
Having the skills will boost your chances of growing despite your
goal, be it to enter the workplace,
create your own business, get a new job, rise in your
company's hierarchy, and so on.
This course is not about informing you about Scrum.
It is about enabling you to succeed with Scrum, to apply it in practice.
Every lecture
was a strategically designed to optimize your chances of
being a successful professional.
And now that I have you with the right mindset let's get started.
In the following lecture, let's start talking about Scrum!
Let's get started at full throttle by understanding, in
a nutshell, how Scrum works.
Scrum is very simple.
You start with a problem.
It might be, for instance, developing a new product or service.
Examples here include building new software or adding new features or
fixes to an existing one, designing a new car or building, developing an
innovative marketing strategy for your company, a new online course, and so on.
In Scrum, the team takes the problem and breaks it into smaller chunks.
For an e-commerce website, breaking the problem would be listing its
features such as sign up and login pages, having support for Content
Management System features, having payment methods, registering products,
shopping cart, product search, and so on.
The team lists everything in a to-do list called the Product Backlog.
This list is ordered so that the work on the top has a higher
priority than the work on the bottom.
Afterward, during a team event called the Sprint Planning, the team collaboratively
selects a few of the top to-do items such as "developing sign up and login pages" to
compose what is called the Sprint Backlog.
The items on the Sprint Backlog are developed and delivered in what is called
a Sprint, which is the heart of Scrum.
A Sprint is a period of at most one month.
At the end of each Sprint, a product Increment is delivered.
And what is an Increment?
For an eCommerce website, it is the website up and running , with
the new functionality, ready to go.
In other words, it is something that the customer can look at and see if it's
good or not; if it fits their needs.
If it does, great, the team is going on the right path.
If not, great too!
Now, the team has enough knowledge to adapt their to-do list and
improve their chances of delivering the best product or service.
So, the team keeps running the Sprints and refining the Product Backlog with
the acquired knowledge from inspecting Increments until the customer or
business decides that the product is good enough, or there's no more budget left.
To make this work, Scrum prescribes events and accountabilities.
Let's start with the events.
Scrum is composed of five events.
The first one is the Sprint, which is a container for the remaining ones.
Then, we have the Spring Planning, which we have already talked about, which
happens at the beginning of each Sprint.
And then, we have two events at the end of the Sprint, the Sprint
Review, and the Sprint Retrospective.
The Sprint Review is about inspecting the Increment and
adapting the Product Backlog, which we have previously discussed.
The Sprint Retrospective is about the team's continuous improvement.
So, it's about inspecting the team's processes and adapting them to
deliver as efficiently as possible.
And finally, there's the Daily Scrum, a 15 minutes event that happens daily,
where the team inspects and adapts their work, giving the team complete focus
on achieving the goals of the Sprint.
Now, let's talk about the three accountabilities.
The first one is the Product Owner.
The PO is the single person accountable for managing the Product Backlog,
ensuring that everybody is aligned with the work to do and that the
most important stuff is done first.
The Product Owner's goal is to maximize the value of the product!
Then we have the Developers.
They are the ones that transform the to-do list into Increments..
And last but not least, we have a fancy one, the Scrum Master, the one
who facilitates all of this work.
Together, they form the Scrum Team!
And that's it!
You've done it.
You had a glimpse of how Scrum works in just a few minutes!
I think this might be a record.
Don't feel overwhelmed if you feel like this video was too much.
The idea here was
just for you to get a big picture of how Scrum works. We will get into the details of everything that we have discussed here
in future lectures.
At this point, you are aware that Scrum is composed of three artifacts: the
Product Backlog, the Sprint Backlog, and the Increment; of five events:
Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective.
And, of three accountabilities: the Product Owner,
Developers and Scrum Master.
However, is this enough?
Of course not!
For many people, knowing about Scrum's artifacts, accountabilities, and events
is the most critical thing about Scrum, and they end up focusing too much on them.
However, this is not true.
These aspects are just the "what".
To truly be able to apply Scrum effectively.
, you need to understand the "whys", which is a topic of future lectures.
I didn't lie to you.
You've learned it for real.
You know about the three artifacts: the Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog,
and the Increment; about the three accountabilities: Product Owner
Scrum Master and Developers, and the five events: the Sprint, Sprint
Planning, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, and the Daily Scrums.
And I'm sure that at this point you might be thinking that Scrum is pretty simple.
And yes, you are 100% correct.
Scrum is very simple.
It is very simple to understand its structure, but is not
straightforward to apply it in practice, and many people struggle.
They struggle because they understand Scrum very superficially.
They memorize Scrum's practices and rules.
They might even get a certification, and, finally, they think that they know
Scrum and they have enough knowledge to go and put it into practice.
And what is the outcome?
Failure!
"Why?"
you might ask.
To answer that, let's start talking aout what Scrum is not.
Scrum is not a process or a set of rules to be executed.
It is not a set of prescribed management practices.
It is not about the skeleton, the Product Backlog or Sprints.
Those are just manifestations of a way more critical mindset.
However, unfortunately, many people understand Scrum superficially by
only understanding its structure, as we saw in the preceding lecture,
and applying "best practices" that they read in a book or elsewhere.
After they fail, some of them end up blaming Scrum.
However, the truth is that, most probably, it was not Scrum's fault, but their fault.
Look, I'm not saying here that Scrum is a silver bullet that is
here to solve all your problems.
No, no.
There is no such thing as a silver bullet that magically
solves all types of situations.
In fact, we will discuss this later in this course with more details, because I
don't want you to become a limited person that thinks that Scrum fits any context.
You need a broader horizon of the tools available to solve real problems.
Having said this, Scrum is a fantastic tool if you use it correctly.
And in this course, I will guide you to become a specialist in Scrum
In this lecture, let us focus on the relevance of Scrum in today's
industry and your career and align your expectations regarding this course.
First of all, why Scrum?
From a global perspective, as you can see here, Scrum is very popular.
In terms of Google searches, Scrum has surpassed the PMP, the project management
professional certification from the Project Management Institute, and Prince2.
Further, Scrum is the most applied framework to manage
agile initiatives and projects!.
Organizations recognize the value of professionals with Scrum
skills by offering high salaries.
Given this, the interest in learning Scrum has grown a lot.
People usually take a Scrum course and expect to learn the basic
Scrum concepts such as Sprint, Product Backlog, and so on.
Thus, what do you think you will achieve in this course?
First, learn about agile management.
Second, dominate the fundamental principles and main Scrum techniques.
Third, have one more tool in your toolkit.
In this case, use Scrum and agile techniques to solve real-world problems.
Fourth, one more certificate, which might be helpful for your portfolio.
And fifth, enhance your CV.
But guess what?
Anyone can learn those.
Anyone can achieve those.
Therefore, of course, this course covers all the technical Scrum concepts.
However, this information must be a means to an end, not the destination.
Do you know what really makes a difference for you?
Is having the confidence of putting this knowledge into
practice in strategic moments throughout your professional career.
And this focus is the most significant difference between this course and
the other ones you find online.
This course is the course that I wish I had taken before I got my first Scum
Master job more than 10 years ago.
In this course, we will simulate executing a project..
And when I say us, I mean us, you and me.
My goal with this course is not to fill you with theory or only get
you ready for passing an assessment.
I want to enable you.
I want to give you actual and concrete results.
I want you to experience Scrum; to have you apply Scrum to your domain.
You will leave this course not only being ready for taking a professional
certification assessment but also to apply Scrum in practice in your workplace and
have you make a difference out there.
It doesn't matter if you're an architect, a software engineer, a
marketing professional, or whatever.
Regardless of your domain, you will be able to follow along
with this course, applying Scrum to your real-world projects.
While I teach you and use the agile and Scrum techniques and methods for
my example project, you will be able to apply them to your project simultaneously.
This course goes beyond a regular Scrum course by including bonus courses
that introduce you to essential agile and lean practices, such as Kanban
and soft skills vital to succeeding in the current workplace, including
leadership, negotiation, and productivity.
Having the skills will boost your chances of growing despite your
goal, be it to enter the workplace,
create your own business, get a new job, rise in your
company's hierarchy, and so on.
This course is not about informing you about Scrum.
It is about enabling you to succeed with Scrum, to apply it in practice.
Every lecture
was a strategically designed to optimize your chances of
being a successful professional.
And now that I have you with the right mindset let's get started.
In the following lecture, let's start talking about Scrum!
Let's get started at full throttle by understanding, in
a nutshell, how Scrum works.
Scrum is very simple.
You start with a problem.
It might be, for instance, developing a new product or service.
Examples here include building new software or adding new features or
fixes to an existing one, designing a new car or building, developing an
innovative marketing strategy for your company, a new online course, and so on.
In Scrum, the team takes the problem and breaks it into smaller chunks.
For an e-commerce website, breaking the problem would be listing its
features such as sign up and login pages, having support for Content
Management System features, having payment methods, registering products,
shopping cart, product search, and so on.
The team lists everything in a to-do list called the Product Backlog.
This list is ordered so that the work on the top has a higher
priority than the work on the bottom.
Afterward, during a team event called the Sprint Planning, the team collaboratively
selects a few of the top to-do items such as "developing sign up and login pages" to
compose what is called the Sprint Backlog.
The items on the Sprint Backlog are developed and delivered in what is called
a Sprint, which is the heart of Scrum.
A Sprint is a period of at most one month.
At the end of each Sprint, a product Increment is delivered.
And what is an Increment?
For an eCommerce website, it is the website up and running , with
the new functionality, ready to go.
In other words, it is something that the customer can look at and see if it's
good or not; if it fits their needs.
If it does, great, the team is going on the right path.
If not, great too!
Now, the team has enough knowledge to adapt their to-do list and
improve their chances of delivering the best product or service.
So, the team keeps running the Sprints and refining the Product Backlog with
the acquired knowledge from inspecting Increments until the customer or
business decides that the product is good enough, or there's no more budget left.
To make this work, Scrum prescribes events and accountabilities.
Let's start with the events.
Scrum is composed of five events.
The first one is the Sprint, which is a container for the remaining ones.
Then, we have the Spring Planning, which we have already talked about, which
happens at the beginning of each Sprint.
And then, we have two events at the end of the Sprint, the Sprint
Review, and the Sprint Retrospective.
The Sprint Review is about inspecting the Increment and
adapting the Product Backlog, which we have previously discussed.
The Sprint Retrospective is about the team's continuous improvement.
So, it's about inspecting the team's processes and adapting them to
deliver as efficiently as possible.
And finally, there's the Daily Scrum, a 15 minutes event that happens daily,
where the team inspects and adapts their work, giving the team complete focus
on achieving the goals of the Sprint.
Now, let's talk about the three accountabilities.
The first one is the Product Owner.
The PO is the single person accountable for managing the Product Backlog,
ensuring that everybody is aligned with the work to do and that the
most important stuff is done first.
The Product Owner's goal is to maximize the value of the product!
Then we have the Developers.
They are the ones that transform the to-do list into Increments..
And last but not least, we have a fancy one, the Scrum Master, the one
who facilitates all of this work.
Together, they form the Scrum Team!
And that's it!
You've done it.
You had a glimpse of how Scrum works in just a few minutes!
I think this might be a record.
Don't feel overwhelmed if you feel like this video was too much.
The idea here was
just for you to get a big picture of how Scrum works. We will get into the details of everything that we have discussed here
in future lectures.
At this point, you are aware that Scrum is composed of three artifacts: the
Product Backlog, the Sprint Backlog, and the Increment; of five events:
Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective.
And, of three accountabilities: the Product Owner,
Developers and Scrum Master.
However, is this enough?
Of course not!
For many people, knowing about Scrum's artifacts, accountabilities, and events
is the most critical thing about Scrum, and they end up focusing too much on them.
However, this is not true.
These aspects are just the "what".
To truly be able to apply Scrum effectively.
, you need to understand the "whys", which is a topic of future lectures.
I didn't lie to you.
You've learned it for real.
You know about the three artifacts: the Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog,
and the Increment; about the three accountabilities: Product Owner
Scrum Master and Developers, and the five events: the Sprint, Sprint
Planning, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, and the Daily Scrums.
And I'm sure that at this point you might be thinking that Scrum is pretty simple.
And yes, you are 100% correct.
Scrum is very simple.
It is very simple to understand its structure, but is not
straightforward to apply it in practice, and many people struggle.
They struggle because they understand Scrum very superficially.
They memorize Scrum's practices and rules.
They might even get a certification, and, finally, they think that they know
Scrum and they have enough knowledge to go and put it into practice.
And what is the outcome?
Failure!
"Why?"
you might ask.
To answer that, let's start talking aout what Scrum is not.
Scrum is not a process or a set of rules to be executed.
It is not a set of prescribed management practices.
It is not about the skeleton, the Product Backlog or Sprints.
Those are just manifestations of a way more critical mindset.
However, unfortunately, many people understand Scrum superficially by
only understanding its structure, as we saw in the preceding lecture,
and applying "best practices" that they read in a book or elsewhere.
After they fail, some of them end up blaming Scrum.
However, the truth is that, most probably, it was not Scrum's fault, but their fault.
Look, I'm not saying here that Scrum is a silver bullet that is
here to solve all your problems.
No, no.
There is no such thing as a silver bullet that magically
solves all types of situations.
In fact, we will discuss this later in this course with more details, because I
don't want you to become a limited person that thinks that Scrum fits any context.
You need a broader horizon of the tools available to solve real problems.
Having said this, Scrum is a fantastic tool if you use it correctly.
And in this course, I will guide you to become a specialist in Scrum
