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Chapter 2: Agile Methodologies and Approaches

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The backlog is essentially a list of prioritized requirements that emanate from the end - customer. At the

start of each sprint, the team takes the top remaining items from the product backlog and turns them into

tasks on the sprint backlog. It ’ s important for the team to only take on as many tasks as can be completed

in any given iteration.

The goal of any iteration is to create potentially shippable software — in other words, by the time you ’ re

at the end of the time box (1 week, 2 weeks, whatever), what you have could be considered ready to

ship. It is functionally complete, reasonably bug - free, and reasonably documented.

For example, a product backlog might have several prioritized items on it, like so:

The customer wants to be able to securely check page views and other stats about their web site.

The customer wants hyperlinks within the report.

The customer wants real - time access to data, without lag.

The customer wants info graphics associated with the data, not just tabular data.

The team might look at this product backlog and decide to convert the first two bullet items into a series
of tasks:

1. Create views to display the report.


2. Create models to connect to data sources.


3. Create a controller to identify and separate different destinations.


4. Implement a security model.

The real task list would probably be longer than that, but you get the idea. Because the team is self -

organizing, the HTML/CSS expert would tackle the views, the database expert would construct the

models, and the security expert would implement the security model. If no security expert is on

the team, perhaps someone remembers that a security module was written for another project — might

it not be useful in this context?

The sprint is set at 2 weeks, and the team takes on the tasks, meeting every day for a standup meeting

that lasts no more than 10 minutes. At each meeting, the ScrumMaster asks three basic questions of each

participant:

1. What have you done since the last time we saw you?


2. What are you going to do until the next time we see you?


3. What obstacles or barriers are in your way?

The first question focuses on accomplishments , the second on to do ’ s , and the third on risks or

concerns. The standup meeting allows the entire team to check in and understand how the project is

going with a great deal of transparency. Very quickly, everyone gets a feeling for what ’ s been

accomplished, what is still left to do, and what ’ s standing in the way.

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