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CHAPTER 1 SHIPPING SOFTWARE
product that contains features which meet customer expectations. After a number of sprints, typically
3 to 10, the product contains enough value to warrant deployment. Figure 1 - 5 shows the release and
sprint cycle. (Chapters 8 and 9 cover using Visual Studio TFS for release and sprint management.)
Sprint 2
Sprint 3
Sprint 1
Sprint 5
Sprint 4
Sprint 6
Release
1.0
Release
2.0
FIGURE 1 - 5: The Scrum release and sprint cycle.
You can observe the high - level activity of a Scrum project by reviewing three characteristics:
Project artifacts — The artifacts are the lists, charts, and documents that the team uses to
run the project.
Roles — The product roles are simply the job descriptions that show who is responsible for
what on the team.
Ceremonies — The ceremonies are the rituals that mark the beginning and end of a
particular activity.
The following sections look at each of these characteristics in more detail.
Project Artifacts
The product backlog is the list of all features waiting to be built. A team prioritizes the product
backlog by business value and ranks it according to which features should be delivered to the
customer. Scrum assumes that the list will grow and shrink throughout a release, as the team learns
more about the features and the customer learns more about the product. Initially, there is just
enough detail associated with each backlog item to begin the discussion between the product owner
and the development team. The primary communication mechanism between groups is face - to - face
interaction rather than documentation.
The product backlog is the sole input directing work streams of the Scrum team. If a feature isn ’ t
on the backlog, it won ’ t be scheduled or built. At the beginning of each sprint, the team moves items
from the product backlog to the sprint backlog to indicate the features that will be built in the current
sprint. At the end of each sprint, the team produces a potentially shippable product. Bugs that exist at
the end of each sprint are added to the product backlog, so work can be scheduled to complete those
items in future sprints. (Chapter 6 covers using TFS to manage and track the product backlog.)
Roles
Scrum has a very simple team structure that involves just three roles. This structure generally
doesn ’ t translate to an organization or a reporting structure within a company, but it clearly defi nes
who does what on the Scrum team. These are the three roles:
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