Components of Scrum

Scrum (スクラム) is a leading framework (フレームワーク) of agile development (アジャイル開発) that builds a product step by step through repeated short iterations.

Scrum fixes only a minimal set of rules, such as the team's roles, a repeating time box (the Sprint), and lists for managing the work (the backlogs), leaving the detailed procedures to the team. Each iteration checks a working result and uses what it shows to adjust the next plan, which suits development whose course is hard to foresee.

AnalogyIt is like painting a large mural one section a week instead of all at once, showing each section to the client and hearing their reaction before deciding how to paint the next.

How to rememberThe name comes from the rugby scrum, where players bind shoulder to shoulder and push as one. Picture the whole team driving forward together.

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A Scrum Team (スクラムチーム) is the single unit that builds a product in Scrum, made up of three roles: the Product Owner, the Developers and the Scrum Master.

Under the 2020 Scrum Guide, there is one Product Owner and one Scrum Master, several Developers, and no hierarchy or sub-teams inside the team. The team itself decides who does what, when and how, which makes it self-managing, and the whole team is typically 10 people or fewer.

AnalogyThink of a small theater troupe: one person picks the play, others build the show, and someone keeps rehearsals from stalling, while members work out the details among themselves.

The Product Owner (プロダクトオーナー) is the role accountable for maximizing the product's value, deciding what to build and in what order.

This role gathers requests from users and stakeholders, turns them into items on the list of things to build (the Product Backlog), and orders it so that the most valuable items sit at the top. Decisions about that order are left to this role.

AnalogyIt is like the friend on a trip who picks the destinations and the order to visit them: they decide which sights come first, while the others work out transport and logistics.

How to rememberAn owner is the one who holds something. Link it to the person who, as the product's owner, holds the priority order of what gets built.

The Developers (開発者) are the people on a Scrum Team who actually produce a usable result in every Sprint.

As a team, they bring together the skills needed to build the product, such as design, programming and testing. They draw up the plan of work for the Sprint (the Sprint Backlog), revise it daily, and are also accountable for meeting the agreed quality standard.

How to rememberScrum Guides up to the 2017 edition called them the Development Team, and the 2020 edition renamed them Developers.

The Scrum Master (スクラムマスター) is the role that helps the team and those around it understand and practice Scrum correctly, and is accountable for raising Scrum's effectiveness.

The Scrum Master helps remove problems that block the work (impediments) and encourages the fixed meetings within a Sprint (events) to serve their purpose. The 2020 Scrum Guide describes the role as a leader who serves the team and the organization.

AnalogyIt is like a mountain guide who does not climb to the summit for you, but teaches you to use the gear and points out the dangerous spots so you can make the ascent on your own.

A Sprint (スプリント) is one round of repeated development in Scrum, a short period of fixed length.

Under the 2020 Scrum Guide, a Sprint lasts one month or less and keeps the same length every time. At the start, Sprint Planning settles what to work on, and during the period a short Daily Scrum each day checks progress. At the end, the Sprint Review inspects the result with stakeholders, and the Sprint Retrospective looks back on how the team worked.

How to rememberLike a sprint in track and field, picture running many short stretches you can finish at full speed, one after another.

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The Product Backlog (プロダクトバックログ) is a list, ordered by value from highest down, of what is needed to improve the product.

New features, improvements and bug fixes are lined up as items, and the higher an item sits, the more detail it is given. The Product Owner is accountable for its content and order and keeps adding and reordering items as circumstances change, so it is never a list made once and finished.

AnalogyIt is like a shopping wish list: you add things whenever they come to mind and keep reordering so that what you need most right now sits at the top.

How to rememberIn everyday English, a backlog is a pile of work not yet done. Think of it as the ledger that holds the work still to be taken up.

The Sprint Backlog (スプリントバックログ) brings together the items selected from the Product Backlog for the current Sprint and the plan of work for finishing them.

It is created at Sprint Planning, held by the Developers for their own use, and updated daily as the work unfolds. Under the 2020 Scrum Guide, it also contains what the Sprint aims to achieve (the Sprint Goal).

AnalogyIt is like a note that pulls only today's purchases from your shopping wish list and even writes down the order in which to walk the aisles.