Best Methodologies in SCRUM

SCRUM is a considered to be set of guidelines that oversee the growth process of a product, from its design phase to its completion. Scrum is one among several agile methods that practices an iterative and incremental procedure in the course of development of a project.
As per SCRUM, a project is divided into what is known as sprint or iteration. Each sprint is timeboxed usually between 2 weeks to a maximum of a month. After a sprint, the team meets and reviews the progress of the project. Here team tries to identify the problems encountered during the sprint and formulates the objectives for the next sprint. In the course of every sprint the team analyses and works on user requirements (also known as user stories) in order to confirm that after every sprint, user needs are taken into consideration and are being satisfied.
One important aspect of SCRUM to note is that it depends on self-organisation. Self-organisation helps the team to achieve the goal by following the most resourceful path with the available resources, knowledge, skills and abilities. This allows team to experiment with different approaches, to analyse and to learn from their failures and to improve.
In a self-organised team, there is no one elected as team leader. The teams work cross-functionally and the team is responsible as a whole in decision making.
SCRUM has been successfully engaged in many companies in many different fields and has achieved outstanding results.
Listed below are few of methodologies used in SCRUM:
Burn down charts : This chart is used to track the progress achieved during the course of the project against the release plan using a release burndown chart. This chart is updated at the end of each sprint by the ScrumMaster.

Stand up meeting: The team meets every day for a swift status update. The meeting is usually time boxed for 15 minutes.
In this meeting everyone tries to answer the three questions

•                         What did you do yesterday
•                         What are you going to do today?

•                          What are the challenges you are facing?

Product backlog : It is prioritized list of all the desired changes to the product being developed which is done by the Product Owner.

• This is used to record requests for modifying a product.  This is used to add new features, changing old features, removing features and fixing issues.

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Value-based Prioritization in Scrum

The Scrum framework is driven by the goal of delivering maximum business value in a minimum time span. One of the most effective tools for delivering the greatest value in the shortest amount of time is prioritization.

Prioritizing can be defined as determining the order and separating what must be done now, from what needs to be done later. The concept of prioritization is not new to project management. The traditional Waterfall model of project management proposes using multiple task prioritization tools. From the Project Manager’s point of view, prioritization is integral because certain tasks must be accomplished first to expedite the development process and achieve the project goals. Some of the traditional techniques of task prioritization include setting deadlines for delegated tasks and using prioritization matrices.

Scrum, however, uses Value-based Prioritization as one of the core principles that drives the structure and functionality of the entire Scrum framework—it helps projects benefit through adaptability and iterative development of the product or service. More significantly, Scrum aims at delivering a valuable product or service to the customer on an early and continuous basis.

Prioritization is done by the Product Owner when he or she prioritizes User Stories in the Prioritized Product Backlog. The Prioritized Product Backlog contains a list of all the requirements needed to bring the project to fruition.

Once the Product Owner has received the business requirements from the customer and written these down in the form of workable User Stories, he or she works with the customer and sponsor to understand which business requirements provide maximum business value. The Product Owner must understand what the customer wants and values in order to arrange the Prioritized Product Backlog Items (User Stories) by relative importance. Sometimes, a customer may mandate all User Stories to be of high priority. While this might be true, even a list of high-priority User Stories needs to be prioritized within the list itself. Prioritizing a backlog involves determining the criticality of each User Story. High-value requirements are identified and moved to the top of the Prioritized Product Backlog. The processes in which the principle of Value-based Prioritization is put into practice are Create Prioritized Product Backlog and Groom Prioritized Product Backlog.

Simultaneously, the Product Owner must work with the Scrum Team to understand the project risks and uncertainty as they may have negative consequences associated with them. This should be taken into account while prioritizing User Stories on a value-based approach (refer to the Risk chapter for more information). The Scrum Team also alerts the Product Owner of any dependencies that arise out of implementation. These dependencies must be taken into account during prioritization. Prioritization may be based on a subjective estimate of the projected business value or profitability, or it can be based on results and analysis of the market using tools including, but not limited to, customer interviews, surveys, and financial models and analytical techniques.

The Product Owner has to translate the inputs and needs of the project stakeholders to create the Prioritized Product Backlog. Hence, Value, Risk or uncertainty and Dependencies are the three factors considered while prioritizing the User Stories in the Prioritized Product Backlog.

Thus prioritization results in deliverables that satisfies the requirements of the customer with the objective of delivering the maximum business value in the least amount of time.

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