Software Development Life Cycle

(SDLC). Scrum Model Step by

Step

Dmitry
Gurendo Reading time: 8 min
Business Analyst 165713 January 15, 2020

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Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Scrum Model Step by Step

Scrum framework allows implementing Agile development methodology. Unlike the waterfall model of
software development, Scrum enables an iterative and incremental development process. The project
divides into several phases, each of which results in a ready-to-use product. At the end of each step
(called sprint in Scrum terminology), a usable product is delivered to a customer. Customer feedback
helps reveal possible problems or change the initial development plan if needed. If you want your
project to strictly follow the main principles of the Agile manifesto, you can use the Scrum model and
be sure that you’re on the right path.

Here are the main roles involved in the development process, according to the Scrum model:

The product owner takes care of the end user’s interests;

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The Scrum master coordinates the whole development process. Another task is to make sure that
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The Scrum team develops the product. Its main tasks are programming, analysis, testing, etc.
Now, let’s take a look at the main steps of the development process that Scrum consists of.

Phases of Scrum Model

Step 1. Product Backlog Creation

A product backlog is a list that contains features to be implemented during the development process.
It’s ordered by priority and every item is called a User story. Every user story gets a unique ID. As a rule,
user stories have the following format: As a [User Role], I want to [feature body] so that [User profit].
This list below shows how these stories can look like. These are actual product requirements that
were implemented during the software developing process:

ID User Story

a-001 As a manager, I want to have the possibility to add, delete and edit tasks to
manage the employees’ workload so that I can improve control over the project

a-002 As a manager, I want to have the ability to add new tasks and change the duration
and starting date of the current ones using drag-and-drop so that I can estimate
the overall project time

a-003 As a manager, I want to assign two types of tasks to employees: part-time task
and full-time task, so that I can better manage task prioritization

Besides these required fields, the optional ones can be added in case of need:

The track is used to select all user stories of a certain type to change their priority. Can be used it to
increase the priority of user stories that relate to the Control panel, for example;

Components make up a list of components that will be changed during the work. An application’s
modules, such as authentication or search, for example;

The requestor is a customer who’s interested in implementing some particular functionality;

Bug tracking ID contains a list of detected bugs that relate to a proper user story.

Step 2. Sprint Planning and Sprint Backlog Creation

Firstly, you should determine what your sprint’s duration will be. A short sprint allows you to release
the working version of a product more frequently. As a result, customer’s feedback will be received
more often, and all the possible bugs and errors will be revealed in time.
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about 2-4 weeks. What’s more important at this phase is the Sprint Goal.
The goal is determined for each sprint. And in accordance with it the sprint is filled with user stories.
Another important thing is the cooperation between stakeholders and team members. The product
owner determines the importance of a proper user story, while the Scrum team defines the
appropriate labor costs.

After that, the Scrum team can select the most important user stories from the product backlog. Then
team members should decide how they will solve this or that task. Also, the team can divide particular
user stories into the smallest ones and then turn them into the series of tasks. The Sprint backlog
should be created next. It consists of user stories that will be completed during the current sprint. The
amount of these stories depends on their capacity in story points assigned to each story during the
evaluation stage. The Scrum team should be capable of finishing all these stories on time.

Step 3. Working on the Sprint. Daily Scrum Meetings

After actual user stories for the current phase are chosen, the development process begins.

To track the current working process, a task board is commonly used. There are usually big cards with
the names of particular user stories and a bundle of little sticky notes with a description of single
tasks which are needed for implementation of this or that story. Each particular board is developed
according to the specifics of a project. Let’s take a look at a small example.

The cards can be arranged according to their importance. When work on a task has been started, the
corresponding sticker is moved from the “To do” field to the “In progress” one. When work is
completed, the sticker can be moved to the “Testing” field, and after the task is successfully tested,
the sticker goes to the “Done” field. An example of how the Scrum task board can look like is shown
below:

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There is also a possibility to use specialized software for this task.

For example, Atlassian JIRA.

Another important Scrum feature is Daily Scrum meetings. These meetings’ main goal is to get full
and veracious information about the current project status and make sure that all team members are
on the same page. During Scrum meetings, every single team member should tell what he or she has
done for the Sprint Goal, which task will be the next, and what problems team members faced during
the work.

In addition, a burndown chart is another widely used tool that allows monitoring daily processes
effectively. It shows you how many tasks remain uncompleted. This chart gives the ability to control
the development process and can be updated after every meeting.

Day by day Scrum meetings help increase the flexibility of the development process. They also allow
understanding of what changes should be made.

The X-axis represents the remaining days of work, while the Y-axis displays the overall amount of
story points for the current stage. After a task that requires a certain number of story points to
complete is over, you can add a point on the diagram to indicate the current progress.

JIRA allows you to create these charts as well:

This chart helps draw conclusions about the current speed of work. Depending on these conclusions,
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number of possible bugs will be minimized. The other way is to include QA engineers into the Scrum
team.

Read Also Why QA Plays a Key Role in a High-Quality Software Product Development

Step 4. Product Increment and Sprint Review

The result of every sprint in Scrum is a potentially shippable product increment that can be
demonstrated to the customer. After each iteration, the development team creates a new version of a
software product with increased value. During the Sprint Review, which is the end part of every sprint,
the overall results can be demonstrated and analyzed. On the basis of all this info, the stakeholders
can take a decision about further project changes and plan the next sprint.

Step 5. Retrospective and Next Sprint Planning

Retrospective’s main aim is to discuss the results and determine the ways how to improve the
development process on the next step. An important feature is that at this stage it is the processes of
work and interaction that are discussed in order to improve the work of the Scrum team as a whole.
The team should conclude what went well during the working process and what can be done better
during future iteration. When the ways of improvement are defined, the team can concentrate on the
next sprint planning.

Conclusion
The main distinctive features of Scrum are agility and continuous progress. It’s provided mostly by
permanent communication and close cooperation between the stakeholders at each step. The Scrum
approach implies a continuous iterative and incremental development process. The goal is to ensure
the possibility to continually increase the product value and maintain flexibility in choosing priorities
for further iterations.

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 Scrum model

When the sprint is finished, the customer can evaluate the working product functionality at the current
iteration and make an informed decision about how the project should evolve during the next sprints.

Even though according to the Agile manifesto, you should prefer working software over
comprehensive documentation, nothing prevents developers from the use of a Software
Requirements Specification. SRS is good at saying what a system or product should do. Despite that
SRS can miss some agile aspects of project development, such as collaboration, it can still be a good
tool for planning and scheduling.

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By Dmitry Gurendo January 15, 2020

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