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Hold the Scrum event in abnormal cases?

Last post 05:02 pm October 31, 2019 by Curtis Slough
5 replies
02:43 am October 25, 2019

Dear everyone,

We are implement a software development project in a outsourcing company.

Customer assign tasks for us each 2-3 days. For each tasks, we plan immediately and develop the product (small modules) in 1-3 days, after that, customer review our results, add comments then we fix (if any). After OK, we build the product to customer's server.

In above situation, we don't know how to conduct the Sprint Planning and Sprint Review event. 

We now hold Sprint Retrospective for each 2-4 weeks but the those Retrospectives are not for specific Sprint.

Could you please advice me some comment to hold all Sprint event base on above situation?

Thank you all.


07:31 am October 25, 2019

In above situation, we don't know how to conduct the Sprint Planning and Sprint Review event

Why do you think Scrum events would be relevant to your situation?

 


04:37 pm October 25, 2019

It seems that you are working within a very good inspect and adapt framework, with customer feedback provided every few days.   There are only a few items that I have thoughts/questions on: 

  • Your current process seems to lend itself to 1-week sprints (identify tasks, build, test, review with customer, build to customer server)
  • If the customer is pushing tasks to you, what benefit would Sprint Planning provide you?
  • What is the team using to estimate how long a product (small module) might take to complete?

 


02:03 am October 30, 2019

Why do you think Scrum events would be relevant to your situation?

As I mentioned, all our works (identify tasks, build, test, review with customer, build to customer server) done within 3 days. 

How can I hold all scrum events (sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review and retrospective) in 3 days?

In other words, there is no 3-day sprint.


09:08 am October 30, 2019

Could you please advice me some comment to hold all Sprint event base on above situation?

Why you need to do Scrum ? 


05:02 pm October 31, 2019

Obviously there is more to Scrum than just the events and all but in order to specifically address the question at hand, I'm going to focus on the events.

In other words, there is no 3-day sprint.

Who or what says there is no 3-day sprint? The Scrum guide simply states that the sprint has a "time-box of one month or less" Why can't 3 day sprints work? I would say you'd be better off going to a 4-5 day sprint because it would flow easier but there is NOTHING that says you can't have a 3-day sprint. Strictly speaking to the events, you're already doing them for the most part. 

Customer assign tasks for us each 2-3 days. For each tasks, we plan immediately and develop the product (small modules) in 1-3 days, after that, customer review our results, add comments then we fix (if any). After OK, we build the product to customer's server.

Custom assigns (Product Owner sets the priority, looking past the whole assign part for now) for each task, we plan immediately (hello Sprint Planning). After that, customer reviews our results (hello Sprint Review).

Then you simply have a Retro to add in. For a 3 day sprint, that shouldn't take long at all, maybe 30 minutes would work well. 

How can I hold all scrum events (sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review and retrospective) in 3 days?

Your planning session shouldn't take that long when you're only getting a few days worth of work, maybe an hour or a little more. The Daily Scrum, what's wrong with having that each day? It's only 15 minutes....  Review can be done in an hour or less easily for that small amount of work. In a calendar sense: day 1 would consist of an hour or so of Sprint Planning allowing the rest of the day to work on the tasks. Day 2 would just have the daily scrum, 15 minutes out of an entire work day is reasonable even on short sprints. Day 3, allow the morning to be for work on the increment/tasks, Review in the early afternoon and end the day with a retro; using the time in between to fix any issues found in Review that must be addressed. 

As I mentioned before, there is MUCH more to Scrum than just the events but hopefully this has helped answer your initial question revolving around the events.


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