14/10/2017 Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C.

Layton | PDF Download

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Scrum For Dummies
Prepare for “scrum mastery” by
Mark C. Layton reviewing the basics of agile project
Wiley, 2015 management.
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7
8 Applicability Mark C. Layton lays out the basic principles of the “scrum” approach to project
7 Innovation management. He provides a fast-paced introduction to “sprint planning,” “daily
scrum,” “sprint reviews” and tools for agile project delivery. Layton depicts how scrum
7 Style
creates value beyond software development by giving varied industry examples, from
civil engineering in India to electronic health records in the United States. The
structured “Dummies” format works well for newcomers and features enlightening
sidebar tips, technical backgrounders and pivotal points. getAbstract finds that

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14/10/2017 Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C. Layton | PDF Download

Layton’s manual will serve novice project managers, with or without traditional
training, as well as anyone else who wants to implement transparent, flexible and agile
project management.

In this summary, you will learn

• What the scrum approach to project management entails;
• What strategies you can use to manage scrum techniques through three roles,
seven project stages and multiple tools; and
• How to avoid pitfalls and gauge your success.

Take-Aways
• “Scrum” is a simple framework that supports agile project management.
• Assign formal roles when building your project team: a “product owner,” a
“scrum master” and a “development team.”
• Start your “road map to value” by formulating your vision.
• Create a high-level “product road map” and add details on “product releases.”
• “Sprint planning” is the “essence of scrum”; each sprint should have a goal and
should take place within a specified “time box.”
• The development team owns the “daily scrum,” during which you coordinate
sprints and tackle possible roadblocks.
• Establish your team’s “definition of done” and evaluate progress in “sprint
reviews” and “sprint retrospectives.”
• Apply the scrum approach whether you’re developing software, tangible goods
or services.
• Make sure you and your team embrace “agile principles.”

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14/10/2017 Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C. Layton | PDF Download

• Measure your scrum success based on “sprint goal success rates,” “return on
investment” and “skill versatility.”

Summary

The “Scrum”
“Scrum itself isn’t Scrum is a simple framework for managing projects in an efficient, agile way. The term
technical. In fact, its comes from rugby, in which team players hold one another by the shoulders – arms
basic tenets are common interlocking and heads down – and push in a semicircle against the rival team in the
sense.” same formation to shift the ball into the field of play.

“Think of your vision
statement as a
destination with a
beacon. You might have
100 ways to get there,
and it doesn’t matter
which way you take; the
point is to end there.”
Expect the same agility from members of your project team in the workplace, where
colleagues of different capacities and backgrounds interact to achieve a shared
objective. The scrum approach offers a format for completing pragmatic, bite-size
chunks to achieve objectives in less time while spending less money. You can use the
scrum framework in any context, be it developing new software, constructing a bridge
or organizing electronic health care records.
Scrum Values
“Five values” guide your work on all scrum projects:

1. “Commitment” – Set realistic goals and commit your team to them. When an
agenda item has top priority, work on it in a “sprint” for a set amount of time.
“The product road map 2. “Focus” – Clarify roles and responsibilities early in the project.
isn’t fixed in stone and
3. “Openness” – Create oversize charts to mark the team’s activities and progress.
fully paved. It too is a
living, dynamic 4. “Respect” – Make sure everyone seeks the positive in each team member.
artifact.”

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14/10/2017 Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C. Layton | PDF Download

5. “Courage” – Let go of old models and habits, and encourage out-of-the box
thinking. Reward team members who break old routines.
“Whether you’re
designing a new model
of sports car or planning Pillars of Improvement
a wedding, everyone Improvement projects rely on the pillars of “transparency,” “inspection” and
needs to clearly “adaptation.” Observe kindergartners for a reminder of how to deliver a project
understand the end successfully by applying these pillars. Give a group of five-year-olds a handful of
goal.” uncooked spaghetti, tape, string and a marshmallow; ask them to build the highest-
possible self-supporting structure. Give the same task to grown-ups and compare the
results. Most adults will spend 20 minutes discussing and planning their construction.
Children dive right in, and through playing and prototyping come up with taller, more
“The product road map creative structures. For great delivery on scrum projects, turn back to a childlike state.
can change. But it gives
you something tangible
Scrum Roles
to start with, thereby
increasing efficiency.” Assign formal roles when building your “development team,” which ideally will have
five to nine members. The “product owner” takes care of business matters. The “scrum
master” coaches the team using facilitation, communication and tactical intervention.
The scrum master acts as a “servant leader” by facilitating bottom-up problem
exploration, not offering top-down solutions.
“Development teams
love scrum for a variety
Make sure that the team can work without disruptions. People need a quarter of an
of reasons, not least of
which is that it’s an hour to achieve a state of focus and concentration. A tiny two-second interruption can
empowering and wreck productivity. The product owner and the scrum master should help keep the
motivating development team on track.
environment.”
“Product Road Map” Stages
The “road map to value” structures your route through seven project management
stages. Work through these stages to reduce your time to market and accelerate your
“Scrum has been proven ability to achieve the goal of creating value for your customers. These stages are:
to deliver value to the
end customer 30 to 40%

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14/10/2017 Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C. Layton | PDF Download

faster than traditional 1. Formulate your vision – Where do you want this project to end up? Set your
methods.” destination knowing that multiple routes are available for reaching your goal.
Your vision statement should have an internal focus and should connect with
your company’s strategy. Communicate your vision widely and review it annually.
2. Create a “product road map” – How do you want to get to your goal? Your
“Development teams
vision indicates the “what;” your road map shows the “how.” Use a board and
perform best when
they’re stable. Feed them sticky notes to depict project needs and product development stages. Take a high-
projects, and give them level, long-term view.
what they need to do 3. Plan your product releases – Your road map reflects a holistic view: Add
their best possible
granularity and engage in more detailed “release planning.” Determine when you
work.”
want to launch the first version or your “minimum viable product” (MVP). Most
projects will have multiple releases; start with the feature with the highest
customer priority. Use a pen to set the first release date, but turn to a pencil after
that to keep future releases flexible.
“Ideally, each task
should be able to be 4. Establish “sprint planning” – Sprints are the “essence of scrum.” A sprint
completed in one day. takes the form of a “time box” in your project plan. You and your development
This gives the team must come up with a clear “sprint goal” for each allotted, time-boxed event.
development team a In your “sprint backlog,” record and prioritize your sprint goals and estimate the
tangible, realistic time time it will take to complete them.
target as they break re-
quirements down into 5. Run the “daily scrum” – Every morning, coordinate sprint actions with the
tasks.” entire team. Spend a quarter of an hour or less identifying possible roadblocks
and agreeing on how to overcome them. Development team members own the
daily scrum, which means they are fully onboard and aware. The daily scrum, a
quick coordination meeting, is how your team “self-organizes and self-manages.”
“Identifying the highest- Schedule a more in-depth meeting to inform team members about new
priority requirements, requirements or updates on sprint goals.
according to business
6. Schedule a “sprint review” – At the end of every sprint, once your team
value and risk, and
working with them and completes a feature, hold a meeting so the team can demonstrate the working
only them are key

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14/10/2017
common practices
within the agile
community.”
“Like building a house
brick by brick, scrum is
an iterative, incremental
approach.”
“When scrum teams are
not co-located, they lose
the advantage of face-to-
face communication.”
“Longer sprints have a
diminishing return
because less of a sense of
urgency exists due to the
multiple days still
available to the team.”
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Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C. Layton | PDF Download
product. Invite organizational stakeholders to give feedback on each
development.
7. Hold a “sprint retrospective” – Invite the team, including the scrum master
and product owner, to look for opportunities for improvement at the end of every
sprint. Examine different aspects of the sprint, including the processes you used,
collaborators and tools. Keep sprint retrospective sessions action oriented, and
focus on future improvements.
“Definition of Done”
Before you start the project, establish how you will determine that it is complete. Get
the buy-in of all team members. Record the parameters defining “done” in terms of
development, testing, integration and documentation. Display your definition for your
team. Crafting this definition will save you and your team from endless discussions
down the line.
Industry and Service Applications
The scrum process brings products more quickly to market while reducing overall
expenditure, especially when developing tangible goods. For example, imagine working
on a civil engineering project in India, where the goal is to create a “flyover
construction” across a busy intersection. If you decided to create a traditional
engineering project plan with temporary roads on both sides and simultaneous flyover
construction, you’d need a year and a half for completion amid constant major traffic
delays. Using scrum and a staged step-by-step approach could half construction time,
reduce congestion and improve efficiency.
Service operations can realize many potential improvement opportunities through
scrum. Especially in health care systems, decision makers appreciate solutions that
increase access and lower costs. Take, for example, creating electronic health care
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14/10/2017 Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C. Layton | PDF Download

records (EHR), often starting with handwritten patient forms and diverse medical
sources. While EHR appeals to most health care providers for its efficiency, its complex
implementation has inhibited its rapid adoption.

Stakeholders at hospitals struggle to find the financial resources to mobilize sufficient

personnel to carry out the huge amounts of data entry EHR requires. Hospital
administrators may raise concerns about data security and privacy. Using scrum, allay
these concerns by embarking on an incremental approach that completes the highest-
priority requirements first. This reduces overall cost and helps find solutions to privacy
and other concerns through cycles of testing and revision.

“Business Function” Applications

Scrum clearly makes a difference in software development and IT projects, but other
fields and functions also can employ it to their advantage. Take HR, for example.
Employee retention and leadership development are top issues confronting today’s HR
departments. Higher personnel turnover leads to greater needs to recruit new talent –
often a lengthy and cost-intensive process. Parexel Informatics – a global medical
device and biopharmaceutical business – needed to add two dozen new hires within a
short time to fulfill the requirements of a new, large project.

The firm faced multiple challenges: It lacked a hiring or onboarding process and it
didn’t have a training department to facilitate new employees’ smooth transition into
the organization. The company used the scrum framework, held a one-day planning
meeting, identified road map priorities and embarked on “one-week sprints” to
monitor its progress. Within seven weeks, Parexel hired, trained and on-boarded 21
new professionals who were ready to work on the new project. This is an amazing
success for scrum, given that large companies with more than 5,000 employees usually
take more than 11 weeks to hire one new employee.

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14/10/2017 Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C. Layton | PDF Download

Companies also can use the scrum process for business development, such as working
on a sales process or sales funnel for converting initial business contacts into done
deals. Start your “road map to value” by defining your sales growth vision. For
example, say you set out to increase your leads-to-sales conversion in a specific
location by 15% by using more social media channels and personal follow-ups with
every new contact.

First, create a high-level product road map and a detailed “product backlog” list.
Catalog all of the activities that can help reach your target. Engage in release planning
– following clear priorities – before diving into sprint planning. Run your daily scrum
and review your progress. Invite your sales director and other company stakeholders to
your sprint reviews and show your latest social media developments. With stakeholder
feedback, gather your team for retrospectives after each sprint to adjust and improve
before starting the next sprint.

“Pitfalls to Avoid”
You don’t want people to just talk about scrum’s tools and element as they keep on
creating traditional project plans and deliverables that they falsely label as sprints. To
avoid this pitfall, embrace “agile principles” when taking the scrum route. Training is
part of a scrum strategy; build it into your plan. The scrum master selects and coaches
the product owner and integrates him or her fully into the team. Ideally, “product
owners clarify, prioritize and set an environment for focus.” If performance drops due
to ineffective product ownership, find a replacement.

An insufficient “physical environment” offers another potential pitfall, especially if your

team members do not work in the same place. Seek a shared space for the team to use
as its permanent project home. If your team is spread out and the members can’t
relocate into one space, consider recruiting local team members. Everyone needs to
embrace agile project management principles. The team’s success will depend on each
person’s adaptability and motivation to learn. Discipline is your friend as your team
members make progress and monitor their shared goals.

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14/10/2017 Scrum For Dummies Summary | Mark C. Layton | PDF Download

Measure Success
To improve, measure achievement. Use metrics to highlight your progress and identify
areas that need improvement. For example, review your road map and check how
many project sprints fulfilled their goals. Account for your “sprint goal success rate,”
and make sure your team feels stretched when setting goals going forward. Achieving
every objective leaves little room for learning and improvement. A less-than-perfect
score can be a motivator.

Calculate your return on investment (ROI) to show your organization the value your
scrum created. Advertise that your projects generate returns from early in the release-
and-delivery cycle. This advantage sets you apart from traditional project management
that generates ROI only in the final release. Use this advantage when negotiating for
internal company funds; reinvest these early returns back into your new developments.

Measure the “skill versatility” of people at different levels of your organization. Having
each person learn something every day positively affects your team’s skill levels and the
capabilities of your organization. Move faster and produce higher-quality results by
including people from different functions. Encourage team members – for example, by
receiving and giving regular feedback – and give them incentives to expand their skills.

About the Author

Mark C. Layton is a strategist and instructor in project and program management.

This document is restricted to the personal use of Alejo U (ualejandroc@hotmail.com)

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