Articles

Obtaining a Scrum Master certification offers significant benefits in facilitating innovation within teams. Certified Scrum Masters are equipped with essential skills to foster a collaborative environment, streamline communication, and promote adaptive planning and continuous improvement. By understanding Scrum principles deeply, they can effectively guide teams through complex projects, encourage creative problem-solving, and empower team members to experiment with new ideas. This certification not only enhances organizational agility but also cultivates a culture of innovation where teams can thrive in responding to challenges and exploring innovative solutions efficiently.

Obtaining a Scrum Master certification provides substantial benefits for fostering innovation within an organization. Certified Scrum Masters are equipped with a deep understanding of Scrum principles and practices, enabling them to guide teams in adopting agile methodologies that enhance flexibility and responsiveness to change. This expertise fosters a culture of continuous improvement and iterative development, which are crucial for innovation. By facilitating effective communication, collaboration, and problem-solving within cross-functional teams, Scrum Masters help break down silos and encourage the sharing of diverse ideas. Furthermore, their skills in removing impediments and managing the dynamics of agile teams ensure that creative solutions can be developed and implemented swiftly. Thus, a Scrum Master certification not only enhances individual career prospects but also significantly contributes to creating an environment where innovation can thrive.

Depending on the industry and type of project, the priority of features and requirements for a

project may remain fixed for significant durations of time, or they may change frequently. If project

requirements are generally stable, there are typically only minor changes made to the Prioritized

Product Backlog throughout development, and Scrum Teams can work sequentially completing

requirements that will provide maximum customer value as prioritized in the Prioritized Product

Backlog. The length of the Sprint is usually longer, 4 to 6 weeks, in such stable environments.

If project requirements change throughout the project, for example due to changed business

requirements, the same method continues to be effective. Before beginning a Sprint—during the

Create Prioritized Product Backlog or Refine Prioritized Product Backlog processes—the highest

priority requirements in the Prioritized Product Backlog are typically selected to be completed in

that Sprint. Because changes have been accounted for in the Prioritized Product Backlog, the team

only needs to determine how many tasks they can accomplish in the Sprint based on time and

resources provided. Change management is executed in the ongoing processes of prioritizing and

adding tasks to the Prioritized Product Backlog.

If there is a Change Request that may have significant impact on a Sprint in progress, the Product

Owner, after consultation with relevant business stakeholders, decides whether the change can wait until

the next Sprint or represents an urgent situation which may require ending the current Sprint and

starting a new one.

Scrum framework clearly specifies that the scope of a Sprint cannot be changed once the Sprint

begins. If the required change is so important that the results of the Sprint would be worthless

without it, then the Sprint should be terminated. If not, then the change is incorporated into a later

Sprint.

There is only one exception to this rule about not changing the scope of a Sprint once a Sprint

begins. If the Scrum Team determines it has heavily overestimated the effort during the Sprint and

has spare capacity to implement additional User Stories, the team can ask the Product Owner which

additional User Stories should be included in the current Sprint.

By locking down the scope of every Sprint, the team is able to efficiently optimize and manage their

work and effort. An additional benefit is that the team does not have to worry about managing

changes once they start working on a Sprint. This is a big advantage of the Scrum framework when

compared to traditional project management.

If project requirements are not very well defined, or if significant changes are expected in the immediate

future, the Length of Sprint is typically set at one to three weeks.

This provides enough stability to the Scrum Team members to work on shorter Sprints, and in turn, deliver

results quickly (which are then evaluated by the Product Owner and business stakeholders at the end of

each Sprint). This also provides enough flexibility for the team to clarify requirements and make changes

to the Prioritized Product Backlog at the end of each Sprint.

To get maximum benefits from a Scrum project, it is always recommended to keep the Sprint Time-

boxed to 4 weeks, unless there are projects with very stable requirements, where Sprints can extend

up to 6 weeks.

A typical Prioritized Product Backlog will contain all User Stories, their time estimates (including any

revised estimates), and the status of higher priority requirements. Any new or revised User Stories

resulting from changes to business requirements, customer requests, external market conditions,

and/or lessons learned from previous Sprints are also incorporated.

One of the Product Owner’s key responsibilities is refining the Prioritized Product Backlog. To

ensure the prioritized requirements in the Prioritized Product Backlog to be included in the next

two to three Sprints are refined into suitable User Stories, it is recommended that the Product

Owner should spend a significant amount of the time in each Sprint for Prioritized Product Backlog

refining. The Product Owner is responsible for adding and revising Prioritized Product Backlog

Items in response to any changes and is responsible for providing more detailed User Stories that

will be used for the next Sprint.

Refining helps ensure that refining of requirements and their User Stories is done well in advance of the

Sprint Planning Meeting so that the team has a well-analyzed and clearly defined set of stories that can be

easily broken down into tasks and subsequently estimated. Based on lessons learned from the current

Sprint, there may be changes to requirements, or there may be reprioritization that can be easily

incorporated into subsequent Sprints. Refining supports and enhances the flexibility of the Scrum model

by incorporating the latest business and technical insights into future Sprints.

The Product Owner takes the lead in a Product Backlog Review Meeting which is conducted during

Refine Prioritized Product Backlog process.

Although the Business Stakeholder(s) and the Product Owner have the final say on Prioritized Product

Backlog Items and whether to accept or reject any Change Requests presented during Demonstrate

and Validate Sprint, it is the Scrum Master’s responsibility to ensure that the requirements and

Acceptance Criteria are not altered during the Sprint Review Meeting for the User Stories completed

in the current Sprint. This prevents the rejection of completed User Stories based on the fact that

they do not meet newly changed requirements. If any requirements need to be changed, any

corresponding PBI needs to be revised to accommodate the modified requirements in a future

Sprint.