Which Scrum Artifacts Provide Transparency And Opportunities For Inspection And Adaptation?
Have you ever thought about how people work and manage to stay on the same page? It is Scrum, people! Moreover, while learning about this way to perform in professional life, I realized that besides helping to get people aligned and adaptive, Scrum offers some fascinating artifacts that promote transparency, inspection, and adaptation. They became an essential part of my professional life, and while getting acquainted with the details of this project management approach, I realized that such tools could make my work more transparent. Do you want to know more about Scrum artifacts and how they can transform your work? Here, I will tell you what each artifact is for and how it can affect the team’s performance.
Scrum Cost Estimation Tool
UNDERSTANDING SCRUM ARTIFACTS
The term “artifact” stands for a tool introduced to keep members of a team on the same page and record their work and progress. Scrum artifacts provide visibility and ensure meaningful discussions during scrum events. Based on my experience, I can say that the artifacts became a vital part of my professional life. While I learned about each artifact and its functions, I realized that each such tool has a unique purpose and that all of them create a system of accountability and transparency.
PRODUCT BACKLOG
The product backlog is a dynamic list of features, enhancements, and bug fixes the team must address and handle. One can say that it is the heart of the scrum artifact, and I must admit that the product backlog became the first artifact I learned about. Each item in the backlog is prioritized based on how valuable it will be to the stakeholders. This tool allowed me to work on the most critical elements first and add priorities to other items accordingly. I can also mention that when we did not maintain our product backlog, and it was not explicitly prioritized, I could see that the team was not sure what they need to work with. It leads to wasted hours and confusion. For example, during my work on a project and developing software, we worked with this backlog and had it updated and prioritized. It improved our sprint planning sessions and ensured that we worked on the most critical.
SPRINT BACKLOG
The sprint backlog is a subset of the product backlog that contains items that the team commits to complete during one sprint. It is a simple yet powerful artifact that creates an excellent plan for the team and serves as a statement of work. It ensures that everyone on the team has a clear understanding of what needs to be done. On one of the projects, we had a visualized sprint backlog board. It was nothing complicated, just a whiteboard in a team’s room. We listed all tasks there and moved the slips across the “To do,” “In progress,” and “Done” columns. This kept the plan transparent not only to our team but also to the stakeholders, who could come to any moment and assess the progress by looking at the whiteboard.
INCREMENT
The increment is the sum of all items completed during the sprint. It is a piece of working software that delivers value to users and forms an iteration of shippable product that complies with the team’s definitions of “Done.” The increment, as such, is the product, but it rather focuses on the product work within Scrum, not the product itself. I remember showing our increment. We showcased features to our stakeholders and demonstrated how they worked by solving particular problems. This was really cool. It showed the value of the work the team did and motivated me to do something awesome.
TRANSPARENCY IN SCRUM ARTIFACTS
Transparency is one of the three pillars on which Scrum stands. In all of the artifacts, the term applies. These two artifacts, however, primarily exemplify and enable transparency in Scrum. The transparency ensures that all team members can see each other’s work and progress, which is not only motivational but also enables a very high degree of trust. This is essential in a self-organizing team.
As a result of the fact that we asked everyone to speak out, we saw many places where we could adapt our process. The openness of the atmosphere led the team members to feel more ownership of the process. Such an approach prevented hand-offs that could happen without broad awareness of the current sprint and ways of work. Transparency in Scrum extends to stakeholders as well. If stakeholders can see both the product backlog and the progress of increment, in most cases, they feel involved in the project. It happened one time that we invited stakeholders to our sprint reviews. They liked the visibility and that they could be involved and give feedback to the increment even before its release. This stakeholders’ involvement helped establish good relationships with them and, most importantly, allowed us to build their comments into the second increment, which was released right after the sprint.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR INSPECTION
Opportunities for inspection can be found when Scrum teams inspect sprints, when they inspect their work, or when they inspect specifics, such as daily standups and sprint reviews.
DAILY STANDUPS
The first one is the daily standups, from a typical team day. It is a short meeting of the entire team of developers where they share their progress and obstacles, which distract them from their main goal. They can also refer to the sprint backlog during the meetings. I found that bringing up the sprint backlog in our daily standups helped everyone on the team to meet and understand more about the process. It was surprising how fast we could identify issues and what mechanisms were. If something was hanging over our heads, the next morning we all knew about it. These meetings helped maintain a feeling of ownership. They fundamentally changed our daily lives. If it seemed that we could not make a deadline, our developers would do anything possible to help other students.
SPRINT REVIEWS
The last category where an inspection can take place is the sprint reviews. I particularly liked the sprint review meetings. They offered us an excellent opportunity to inspect our increment. Stakeholders were also invited to the meetings, and was one of these meetings, where we got unexpected feedback from our stakeholders. In the next focus of sprint, we our main our cod. That was only possible because we developed “an opening (we discussed the trend data in our previous post) for inspection” culture.
ADAPTATION THROUGH SCRUM ARTIFACTS
Adapting is the act of changing when needed, based on feedback and inspection. Scrum artifacts help in this because each artifact gives the necessary information to make decisions, adapt artefact or even reduce waste bandwidth. This post illustrates how backlogs, which are artifacts, help in adaptation including my own experience.
RETROSPECTIVES
Backlogs have been especially beneficial in retrospectives by helping us adapt our practices. We adopted Scrum in an attempt to better organize ourselves with the increased volume of work we received. This work was done over a bell curve, starting slowly in the middle and getting quicker and slower as time passes. We used the Scrum backlog for both product and sprint.
Going through the backlog in the first retrospective, we noticed that items were taking longer than they should. Consequently, we devised different ways to be more efficient and modified the backlog in preparation for the next backlog review.
The backlog review and adjustments performed in the first and second retrospective changes continued even more frequently, keeping up with our increasingly efficient way of working, always evolving to be more productive.
REFINEMENT SESSIONS
Refinement sessions help in adaptation through ensuring that we worked on the right material as much as possible. From the very first and subsequent refinement sessions afterwards, we had a clear picture of what we were trying to achieve. I remember us in preparation for the development of our discarding of our existing product backlog. It was refreshing, and morale was heightened.
BUILDING A CULTURE OF TRANSPARENCY, INSPECTION, AND ADAPTATION
- Celebrate Small Wins
It can be a great way to boost morale and help teams stay focused. I always organized a small celebration once the team completed a challenging sprint. This practice not only made them feel recognized, but also built an atmosphere where everyone felt appreciated. As noted by Economies, celebrating small wins motivates the team members and helps reinforce positive aspects in the working environment. - Encourage Continuous Learning
I encouraged them to experiment, search for knowledge, and be ready to learn from the failures. To foster this growth mindset, I often shared my resources on Scrum practices and let them explore new techniques. As noted by Chan and Neuendorf, continuous learning opens ways for innovation opportunities and allows people to take informed risks. This also underlines the value of experimenting, as it acts as a trigger for new thinking and innovation. - Engage Stakeholders Regularly
I regularly engaged them and always kept the stakeholders up to date on the progress. I also invited them to some key meetings, such as sprint review and sprint planning. It provided a sense of ownership and ensured that all the work was aligned with their needs. This practice helped create regular conversations, enabling us to share insights and get constructive feedback. Additionally, it underscored the value of employing the principles of transparency and inspection.
CONCLUSION: EMBRACING SCRUM ARTIFACTS FOR TEAM SUCCESS
The Scrum artifacts are invaluable, as they provide transparency as well as opportunities for inspection and adaptation. The product backlog, sprint backlog, and increment are tools that can open new horizons if used properly. Over time, I have found that all the Scrum artifacts are closely linked and, when combined, they help create collaborative teams. Thus, I hope that the tips shared in this blog can help you and your teams get the most of these Scrum artifacts. What about your Scrum experiences and success stories?