5 SCRUM Project Management Keywords

Couple of weeks before, one of my friend called for a quick discussion. He is a Tech. Lead in IT, and the recent appraisal gave him an opportunity to play the role of project leader for a new software project. We discussed general project management “TO-DO” practices, and I shared some checklists for his benefits. While discussing, I found that he is already doing some set of project management activities without knowing the right ‘technical’ titles of them. So I suggested him to also ‘know’ the keywords. I am sure many Technical Leaders, and Project Leaders and in same scenario. As knowledge sharing, let me share some keywords and meanings for SCRUM project management model today.

Daily SCRUM Meeting: Basically a 15 minutes daily meeting to discuss about 3 essential questions. Question one is “What have I done since the last Scrum meeting?”, Question two is “What will I do before the next Scrum meeting?”, Question three “What prevents me from performing my work as efficiently as possible?”

Product Backlog: The Scope / Requirements for a System, expressed as a priority list of Product Backlog Items. The requirements will be both functional (ex: a menu) and non-functional (ex: performance) customer requirements, as well as technical team generated requirements (ex: Tools). Product owner is responsible for the prioritization of the Product Backlog.

Product Burn-down Chat: The Progress of a Project. It shows how much work was left to do at the beginning of each sprint. The scope of this chart spans releases. A release burn down chart can be made for release specific.

Sprint: An Iteration of work during which an increment of product functionality is implemented. The duration will be maximum 4 weeks. Every Sprint starts with a sprint planning meeting. At the end of the Sprint, the Sprint review meeting and retrospective meeting follows. During the Sprint, the team must not be interrupted with additional requests. It guarantees the commitment.

Sprint Backlog: Defines the work for a sprint, represented by the set of tasks that must be completed to realize the sprint's goals, and selected set of product backlog items.

Velocity: Typically, “how much product backlog effort a team can handle in one sprint?” This can be estimated by viewing previous sprints, assuming the team composition and sprint duration are kept constant. It can also be established on a sprint-by-sprint basis, using commitment-based planning.
Once established, velocity can be used to plan projects and forecast release and product completion dates.