Running Head: FINAL REPORT

Final Assignment-A Scrum Analysis

Purva Rane

PJM 6815 Advanced Agile Project Management

Prof. Johan Roos

Northeastern University

12/12/2020
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Table of Contents

1. Overall Journey......................................................................................................................3
2. Future Milestones...................................................................................................................3
3. A Brief Journey into Advanced Agile...................................................................................4
3.1. Week 1..................................................................................................................................4
3.2. Week 2..................................................................................................................................5
3.3. Week 3......................................................................................................................................6
3.4. Week 4......................................................................................................................................7
3.5. Week 5......................................................................................................................................8
3.6. Week 6......................................................................................................................................8
4. Sprint Retrospective...............................................................................................................9
4.1. What went well in Sprint 1 & 2?...........................................................................................9
4.2. What went wrong in Sprint 1 & 2?.......................................................................................9
5. A Different Approach towards Scrum...............................................................................10
6. References.............................................................................................................................12

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1. Overall Journey

I have been familiar with projects per se since a very young age. It started with my art, which

then turned into academics, and finally my perspective towards project changed during my

bachelors. I gained the knowledge of various procedures, task, obstacles that occur during any

assignment and how to overcome them. The sense of accomplishment that I get after resolving

these challenges or after finishing the project has inspired me to pursue my major in Agile

Project Management here at Northeastern University. During my bachelor’s I interned at Bharat

Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) as a part of the project management team. Here, my major

responsibilities included creating WBS to document the work packages, deliverables, resources

thereby determining the KPI and critical success factors to evaluate strategic and overall

performance of the project. This experience gave me the taste of the dynamic work done by the

project management team. Hence, I wanted to pursue a master’s degree in Project Management.

2. Future Milestones

As I had previous experience in the technical aspects of executing a project, I was determined in

pursuing Agile Project Management was to maximize my opportunities in getting to know the

gist while executing a project and aligning the project objectives with the strategic business

goals. As it is universally known, for Scrum, the teams are cross-functional and self-organizing

i.e., each team member will be required to take a feature from idea to implementation. This

further motivated to study and have an in-depth knowledge about what goes on in managing a

Scrum team. Unlike the traditional waterfall framework, Agile methodology uses an iterative

approach ensuring enhanced quality, customer satisfaction, and continuous learning environment

throughout the project execution.

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From this lab coursework, it is safe to say that I have learned and acquired hand-on training on

how to implement Agile projects by using the platform- Monday.com.

3. A Brief Journey into Advanced Agile

The hand-on training was scheduled for sex weeks. Prior to commencing this lab coursework, we

were divided into three groups where each group comprised of 5-6 members. Post division, the

teams were assigned a software platform to work on their projects. These platforms included-

Jira, Atlassian DevOps, and Monday.com. Our team was assigned to work with Monday.com.

The scope for the project was to create a library including 28 papers; each paper related to Agile,

Scrum and other methodologies. A product backlog was provided including these 28 user stories

in the first week. This turned out to be a good in terms of gaining knowledge and expanding it by

implementing in my daily routine and at workplace.

3.1. Week 1

 In the first week, there was not much to do as we were getting to know each team member.

We did some research about Monday.com associated with its usefulness and features that

could help us in planning and executing the sprint plans.

 In addition to assigning the role of ‘Scrum Master’ to each team member, we learned and

started to implement the guidelines and best practices to help us work efficiently in a scrum

organization.

 As per the assignments, we were guided by Prof. Roos. In the end of week 1 we submitted

our Team Charter which included:

 Meeting Notes (discussion on how to execute the given assignments and responsibilities)

 Team Background (as none of us worked with any of us in the previous classes, this

proved to be useful in getting to know their strengths and skills set)

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 Contact Information

 Modes of Communication (Zoom meetings, phone calls, WhatsApp messenger)

 Established Ground rules

 The time for daily stand-up meeting was decided at 6pm via WhatsApp and Email every day

except Thursday and Saturday. Along with a daily standup meeting immediately after the

class has ended via a Zoom call, another daily standup meeting will be held at 2 pm via

Zoom call.

3.2. Week 2

 In this week, there was a sense of continual learning as we were getting familiar with the

platform- Monday.com.

 The initial product backlog was provided with priorities set by the Product Owner (Prof.

Roos). These 28 user stories were thoroughly read and researched by each team member in

order to establish individual responsibilities based on experience, knowledge, and team

needs.

 To assign user points to the given 28 user stories, we planned on playing the game- ‘Planning

Poker.’ This eventually turned out to be efficient thereby discussing the complexities of each

and every user story.

 Having said that, we agreed and established a common ground on having some flexibility in

terms of changing the user story points later if need be. For example, a priority was

reassigned to a team member (James Howard) as he had prior experience related to that

subject.

 As the access to a free trail for Monday.com was 14-days, each team member except one

(Yash Patel) made an account on Monday.com and started to work.

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 In week 2, we struggled with using some of the boards to track the sprints by implementing

the Release Plan.

 Velocity was determined by the release dates for each Sprint and the timeframe to

accomplish the proposed items in each Sprint. We also considered team availability and other

responsibilities they each have.

 At the end of week 2, we embraced the software Monday.com and agreed on sending an

invite to Prof. Roos so that he will be able to see our work.

3.3. Week 3

 The Product Backlog was changed i.e. the priorities for the given user stories were changes.

 For this week, we were asked to submit the Sprint 1 plan which would include all the stories

as per the priorities and user story points.

 In addition, hours of work estimated for each task assigned to each team member was also

determined and included in the plan.

 Since the priorities were changes, team members- Chuzhe and Carrie were assigned new

priorities leading to some tasks moving from Sprint 1 to Sprint 2.

 A revised story estimation was done by playing the game- Planning Poker to deal with the

changes in priorities.

 In order to maintain the velocity of the team, the sprints were rebalanced with almost

equivalent user story weightage.

 A screenshot of our Task Board was submitted to show progress for each task. In addition, a

copy of Burndown Chart was also submitted followed by meeting notes taken down during

the daily standup meetings.

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 While analyzing the Burndown Chart, I realized that our burndown chart went up and then

gradually came down.

3.4. Week 4

 In this week, we focused on ‘Sprint Retrospective’ during the daily standup meeting. This

involved us asking and analyzing the three questions-

 What went well?

 What went wrong?

 What are the goals for next sprint?

 If a sprint retrospective runs well, it can provide us [ CITATION Pro19 \l 1033 ]:

 Areas for improvement and provide a platform to talk about values the whole team can

work on moving forward.

 Takeaways on how to improve a role and have conversations on how to perform better as

a team, and how to better collaborate with our clients/stakeholders.

 If a sprint retrospective runs poorly, following could happen [ CITATION Pro19 \l 1033 ]:

 It could turn into a basing session by bringing up things that would never end up getting

implemented.

 It could result in a missed opportunity for the team to grow.

 During this retrospective, we discussed the grades and feedback given to us by our Prof.

Roos thereby determining corrective measures to improve the overall team performance.

 In order to track the progress, we reviewed and regularly monitored the Burndown chart and

velocity chart.

 Lastly, we discussed next week’s tasks including improving the quality of papers, improving

the formatting, and the content of next week’s class presentation.

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3.5. Week 5

 In this week, we combined the papers in Sprint 1 and the stories planned to be released in

Sprint 2.

 In addition, hours of work estimated for each task assigned to each team member was also

determined and included in the plan.

 Since the priorities were changes, team members- Chuzhe and Carrie were assigned new

priorities leading to some tasks moving from Sprint 1 to Sprint 2.

 A revised story estimation was done by playing the game- Planning Poker to deal with the

changes in priorities.

 In order to maintain the velocity of the team, the sprints were rebalanced with almost

equivalent user story weightage.

 A screenshot of our Task Board was submitted to show progress for each task. In addition, a

copy of Burndown Chart was also submitted followed by meeting notes taken down during

the daily standup meetings.

3.6. Week 6

 In this last week, we conducted a daily standup meeting where we simply discussed the

lessons learned.

 We thoroughly understood each role involved in developing a product i.e., Scrum Master,

Product Owner, and Scrum Team.

 In addition to the above-mentioned roles, we analyzed and reviewed the artifacts created by

the team during product development i.e., Product Backlog, Sprint Burndown Chart, and

Sprint Backlog.

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 Lastly, we submitted the entire 28 set of papers to create a library associated with Scrum and

Agile topics as per the scope of this project along with the Burndown Chart and Task Board.

4. Sprint Retrospective

4.1. What went well in Sprint 1 & 2?

 Everyone attended the daily standup meetings on time and followed the ground rules

 Each team member carried out their own research associated with Monday.com

 The communication and coordination amongst the team members was at a high level

 The team managed and implemented the assigned tasks with changes in Product Backlog

 The flow of communication between the previous Scrum Master’s and next week’s Scrum

Master was efficient

 The tasks and changes were regularly updated and monitored by the entire team

 The user stories were timely implemented, and the estimated work hours were thoroughly

calculated

 Completed all the tasks before the assigned deadlines

 The compilation of 28 papers was in accurate APA format along with references

 The coordination was rather smooth while communicating on Zoom video call associated

with daily standup meetings

4.2. What went wrong in Sprint 1 & 2?

 Initially, we were unable to work with Monday.com

 The communication with respect to the project updates was carried out via WhatsApp

 As per Agile environment, it was incorrect to carry out regular follow-ups regarding each

team member’s task

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 In the beginning, our team had some difficulty explaining the burndown chart

5. A Different Approach towards Scrum

Emerged in the 1970s and popularized in 2001, Scrum is the best known as a way of doing work

within the Agile Methodology placing high value on people as an asset [ CITATION Rac1 \l

1033 ]. In order to empower project team members, one can adapt the development approach of

scrum best practices in case of any changes occur while executing phase of the project. They are

effective in following ways:

 Emerging requirements will be met by figuring out a suitable way

 For project progress, impediments are removed

 Prioritization of work activities to meet the strategic project goals

While working on the lab course work, our team implemented the above-mentioned best

practices in order to attain maximum efficiency at the end. Firstly, I believe instead of giving us

28 papers with a scope of creating library associated with Agile and Scrum Framework, we could

have developed or executed projects involving products as they are executed within an

organization. This could have helped us have a better and thorough understanding with the work

environment around a Scrum Framework. Given a chance, I would love to implement Scrum

Framework in lean product development. As we know change is inevitable as the customer needs

are inconsistent along with uncalled for changes in market trends and growth. In case of

traditional waterfall methodology, the concept of change management and implementing these

changes is rather rigid. On the contrary, due to iterative approach in Agile Methodology, changes

are identified at an early basis thereby maintaining the quality of the product. In addition, while

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implementing scrum, a sense of effective communication and collaborative environment is

created due its ability of creating feedback loops.

As result of these feedback loops, there is a constant involvement of customer which enables the

development team to achieve tangible results thereby eliminating any knowledge gaps in

understanding the customer expectations and needs. As per the daily standup meetings, I believe

15 minutes is a short period of time to let each team member give their update and discuss ideas

associated with the next iterations. Having said that, increasing or reducing the planned events

will in turn disrupt team’s work rhythm thereby leading to burnout, reduced velocity and low

quality.

In conclusion, the roles, responsibilities, events, artifacts and ground rules involved in Scrum

Framework are immutable i.e., the existence of scrum is in its entirety. This lab course work has

helped me understand and gain hands-on experience by using Monday.com which will in turn

help me in achieving my Certified Scrum Master certification.

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6. References

Proventures. (2019, March 15). What Is A Sprint Retrospective and Why Should We Run It?

Retrieved from Proventures: https://proventuresindia.com/blog/what-is-a-sprint-

retrospective/

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