About Scrum
The team leader wants to use Scrum in our small team, and fortunately I took the responsibility as the Scrum Master, although I have no idea about what is a "Scrum Master".
So I have to do some investigation on this, and I found that I have a book downloaded from the InfoQ web site talking about Scrum and XP. It recommended this web site: http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/scrum
and here below is some useful information from the site.
First of all, what is Scrum? Scrum is an agile process for software development. With Scrum, projects progress via a series of iterations called sprints. Each sprint is typically 2-4 weeks long.
Scrum is suitable for projects with rapidly changing or highly emergent requirements.
A Scrum team is the team to use scrum to do development. A Scrum team is usually made up of 5 to 9 person. The team does not include any of the traditional software engineering roles such as programmer and testers. Everyone on the project works together to complete the set of work they have collectively committed to complete within a sprint.
Product owner is the owner of the product, that is, the key user or a key stakeholder.
And the Scrum Master, he or she is responsible for making sure the team is as productive as possible. The Scrum Master does this by helping the team use the Scrum process, by removing impediments to process, by protecting the team from outside, and so on.
The product backlog is a prioritized features list containing every desired feature or change to the product.
Note on the sprint review meeting: typically, this may take the form of a demonstration of the new features in an informal way. The meeting must not become a task in itself nor a distraction from the process.
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Now that I have the knowledge of what is a scrum master -- the one to make the Scrum process running the right way. I know what to do now:
1. First, "Protecting the team from outside", I think for this project, I need to make sure the two member of the team contribute enough time to the project.
2. Help team use the Scrum process. First, we have to build the project backlog, and then define the sprint backlog, and then make the plan for the sprint, write down the action items;
3. Organize the Scrum meeting, make the meeting efficiency and effective.
I think for now, the most urgent thing is to define the product backlog and then define the sprint backlog.
Start doing this tomorrow.
I'll try to make this work good:)