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Is this statement about Scrum fully correct?

Last post 11:07 am February 23, 2018 by Ian Mitchell
6 replies
08:16 pm February 21, 2018

Hi all,

I recently applied for a public work (test) here in Brazil and there was a statement about Scrum in one of its questions that I consider to be wrong but is being treated as correct in the test.

The statement is:

"In Scrum, the team monitors your progress against an established plan by using a Release Burndown Chart at the end of each Sprint."

From what I researched there would be two errors in this statement.

First, Release Planning is no longer required by Scrum being acceptable depending on the context. Thus, Release Burndown Chart would not necessarily apply without this planning and that any other technique could be applied such burn-up and so on.

Another point is about the frequency of this monitoring. The translated statement from Portuguese ensures that this team monitoring occurs only at the end of each Sprint. Here the justification is that this process of updating work done/missing is almost daily!

Is my interpretation correct?

I was basing myself:

- in the current version of the Scrum Guide;

- in the Changes between 2010 and 2011 Scrum Guides;

- and in these forum questions about Release burndown chart

-- Release burndown chart

-- Release BurnDown

 

The test answer is based on the following statement, present here:

"In a Scrum project, the team monitors their progress against a plan by updating a Release Burndown Chart at the end of each Sprint (iteration)."

Is the above statement outdated, right?

I would really like to hear an expert opinion to see if I can possibly contest this test's question.

Thank you all in advance!


09:06 pm February 21, 2018

First, Release Planning is no longer required by Scrum being acceptable depending on the context. Thus, Release Burndown Chart would not necessarily apply without this planning and that any other technique could be applied such burn-up and so on.

Correct. The Scrum Guide has not required a Release Burndown since 2010.


Another point is about the frequency of this monitoring. The translated statement from Portuguese ensures that this team monitoring occurs only at the end of each Sprint. Here the justification is that this process of updating work done/missing is almost daily!

The 2010 Scrum Guide said that the Product Owner should keep an updated Release Burndown posted at all times.


10:49 pm February 21, 2018

Ian, thank you so much!!


07:14 pm February 22, 2018

Dear Ian, thank you so much!


08:47 am February 23, 2018

First, Release Planning is no longer required by Scrum being acceptable depending on the context.

I'm a little bit confused! What does ist mean the Planning is no longer required?


09:23 am February 23, 2018

I'm a little bit confused! What does ist mean the Planning is no longer required?

Sprint Planning IS required, but Scrum Guide does not mention Release Planning - therefore this is outside of Scrum's scope. It may help, nut is not required.


11:07 am February 23, 2018

In Scrum, each Sprint must yield a potentially releasable increment. The Product Owner may or may not decide to release it. Future releases of product functionality may be anticipated and expressed in the Product Backlog; they may also be discussed in the Sprint Review along with any associated time-lines.

That is as prescriptive as the framework gets as far as release planning is concerned. Any implementation choices about how best to achieve the above, such as making use of release burn-downs or whatever, is up to the Product Owner.


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