2009 IITA International Conference on Services Science, Management and Engineering

Research on Agile Project Management with Scrum method

HU Zhi-gen1, YUAN Quan 2, ZHANG Xi3

(1. School of Water Resource and Hydropower, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China; 2.
Department of Management Science and Engineering, School of Economics and
Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China; 3. Hubei University of Technology,
Wuhan 430072, China;
[email protected])

Abstract uncertainty of the continuous increasing, there are

more and more concerns and applications paid to agile
Agile software developments are hotspots of management in a wide range.
software development field in foreign countries.
Especially, Scrum will help us to manage the project 2. The theory of agile management
more efficiently because it is an adaptive process.
Scrum method is an iterative incremental process of 2.1. The definition of agile management
Software development commonly used with Agile
Software Development. According to the Agility that is flexibility, it is a state of dynamic,
characteristics of agile environment and Scrum, an adapted to the specific circumstances, catering to the
example is given to elaborate how to manage the change and self-improvement. Agile project
project with Scrum agile management in this article. management is a software project management coping
Key words: agile management; Scrum; iterative with constant change and uncertainty of the project.
process Agile is an attitude rather than a process, is also an
atmosphere rather than a way, of which a most
1. Introduction important term is innovation.
In the implementation of agile project management,
In the manufacturing industry agile project managers should pay attention: Adjusting its
manufacturing integrates together there parts which are own team to adapt to change, being dedicated to the
flexible advanced manufacturing technology, products, coordinating with customers and being focus
workforce mastering the production skill and on communication.
knowledge, and flexible management of enterprise Agile project management integrating the values,
internal and between enterprises. With the ever- guiding principles and practical practice, forms a
changing market opportunities, agile manufacturing collaborative development team. With the combination
using information technology responds quickly in of systemic thought and theory of constraints and
maximum to meet the needs of customers. These lean production, core principles of agile software
management ideas and methods greatly improve the methods are demonstrated, that is, incentive and full
efficiency of the manufacturing industry and the ability decentralization of staff management, quality first,
of functional agility. In recent years, the management small management size and short production cycle,
thought was applied well in the IT industry, mandatory release date, And using of best practices to
particularly software development industry, and reduce variables and uncertainties.
through a lot of research and practice by academics and
the industry, a series of values, principles and methods 2.2. The development methods of agile
of software development agile management were management
established gradually, which is great impetus to the
rapid development of the industry. In the current The common agile software methods include
environment, with the rapid development of Crystal, ASD (Adaptive Software Development), FDD
technology, the demand for the complexity and (Feature Driven Development), XP (Extreme
Programming) and RUP (Rational Unified Process)

978-0-7695-3729-0/09 $25.00 2009 IEEE 26

DOI 10.1109/SSME.2009.136
and Scrum, all of which have characteristics of 3. Sprint. Scrum development process comprises a
flexibility, iterative stage, feedback and gradually series of iterative Sprint process, a number of sprint
approaching the target, as shown in Figure 1. In this process carry on orderly until the risk assessment of
paper, Scrum method will be emphatically introduced. products that can be delivered. Sprint is a series of
development activities in limited time, including
analysis, design, coding, testing etc. Usual it is 30-day
iteration, each item of Backlog will be arranged in the
Sprint, then the time required (hourly basis) will be
Start End estimated by team. After a Sprint, there must be the
functions to deliver, and the completed contents must
be demonstrated according to the established goals of
Sprint Backlog in the team.
Iteration 4. Scrum meeting. Scrum meeting is an effective
means of Scrum project management, divided into two
types: Sprint meeting and Daily meeting. Sprint
meeting take place in the end of the current sprint to
Figure1. Agile management thoughts discuss and decide sprint Backlog of the next sprint,
whose time cycle follows Sprint.
Daily meeting, also called as Daily Scrum, is a day
during the regular meeting every day during Scrum,
3. Scrum method which is the greatest difference between the traditional
ways. All members attend Scrum meeting of 15-20
3.1. The definition of Scrum minutes every day at the same time and the same room.
In this 15-minute meeting, Scrum Master will ask three
Scrum (an English-style football team), of which questions to each member:
software development model is an agile development, 1) What you have done in the day since the last
gradually popular in the recent two years. According to meeting, and what is the completion percentage of
Schwaber, Scrum is an agile, lightweight process that your current mandate?
can be used to manage and control software and 2) Which difficulties were encountered in your
product development using iterative, incremental work, and what kind of help is needed to provide from
practices. other members?
Scrum as agile methods in the important practice on 3) What will you do in the day from now on to the
software development, with characteristics of relatively next meeting?
flexible organization system, timely and interactive The time each member had taken on Backlog items
feedback, objective-oriented flat management and will be recorded in the Sprint backlog, Scrum Master
effective participation of members, can solve the propose immediate solutions or guidance to the issues
difficulties faced by traditional open methods some to at the meeting, promoting the team toward goal
a large extent. Wrapping existing engineering practices continuously. Different from traditional software
including Extreme Programming and RUP, Scrum development methods that rely on the regular meeting
generates the benefits of agile development with the of a few hours one week to monitor the project
advantages of a simple implementation. progress, it is simpler and more humanized and easy to
detect and correct problems through Scrum Meeting to
3.2. Principles of Scrum method manage the project.
Generally speaking, Scrum is a fast, lightweight
1. Scrum team. It refers to the entire project team, practice with the iterative increase model, combining
including the full-time developing staff, and also the advantages of XP and RUP, which is a great help to
external personnel affected by the software issue, such improve the software efficiency. The development
as marketing personnel and customers. flow of Scrum is shown as Figure 2.
2. Backlog. Backlog is a task list, including Product
Backlog and Sprint Backlog, to guide the direction of
Scrum development. Sprint Backlog is a list with all
features completed by Scrum team in the current
Sprint. Sprint Backlog is actually a subset of Product
Backlog, and continues to develop and enrich the
Product Backlogs of whole project to perfection.

27
 Scrum Method
M0 M1 M2 M3 Stabilization Pregame
Planning
Product System Architecture/High Level
Backlog Design
Game
Sprints
(Concurrent Engineering)
Plant Deliver Demo Improve Develop
Sprint Workitems Results Process
(Analysis, Design, Develop)
Wrap
Review
Adjust
Postgame
Sprint (30 Days) Closure
Sprint
Backlog

15-min
Figure 3 Development process
Stand-Up
Meeting

4.2. Sprint cycle management procedures

In-Process
Workitems Daily On-Task Hours In a Sprint period, the members have their own
& Bugs
independent process management and logs. This phase
Figure 2 Development flow of Scrum of the Sprint management process is as follows:
Scrum members: small-scale development team and
a lead.
4. Case study Stage goal: relatively clear to demonstrate in the
end of stage.
Now let us analyze Scrum method in an example of Important dates: the dates of beginning,
developing internally a software project of land-use intermediate scrutiny and the end demo.
system. The system based on land-use survey, can be The task list: subdivide the stage goal into small
information management integrating approval of independent task, and allocate to the team members,
remote land-use and exploitation and reclamation then according to completion of distribution, assign
business, in order to achieve graphical management, them to the "start" and "allocated" and "completed" in
properties management and mutual inquiry of graphics the category respectively.
and text of land-use planning information. As the
specialty of this project, for internal software, the 4.3. Scrum application
demand for the product is identified, and the customers
are internal sectors in the Lands Authority and the 1. Eight persons in the team, acted as Project
subordinate local Lands Authority. Therefore, the Manager, Architect, Developer, Tester, as well as
software product need to meet the requirement of Release manager. The project background provided a
available information, comprehensive data and good practice soil for Scrum;
accurate call at any time, following the principles of 2. Small version of iteration: started from the
operability, Security, compatibility and graph-text beginning of the project, using the stage plan up to
integration. three weeks, each stage released the version within the
system;
4.1. Scrum organization structure stage 3. In each stage planning: the functional
requirements, bugs, defects, the improvements of users
The above-mentioned process of Scrum method is and technological upgrading etc., which were collected
actually a general division in theory. As Scrum method first from the members in summary to become the
has inherent features of agility in all agile development project tasks, then taking a half day as a unit, estimated
methods, in the operation it can be carried out in workload; secondly, group discussions identified
accordance with different needs, of which the key is to priority, then ranked workload and removed low-
maintain its essence: a relatively short Sprint period, priority task was removed. In the period, through the
daily Scrum meetings and timely review. In Figure 3, it method of Site Development, customers can see it as
is given the details of the development process of the clear as possible every day and propose amendments.
land-use system.

28
 4. In the end of each stage planning: when a Sprint delayed more, and so on. In view of these, formal or
stage finished, the project manager usually held a stage optional interviews and communication are inevitable.
demonstration of all team members to display the Does not solve the personnel problem, not the back
results of this stage, let everyone know the successful there are many controllable risk. There would be lots
conclusion of the stage. The task completion of of uncontrollable risk without well solution to the
individuals and whole team, also the self-assessment personnel problems.
satisfaction of members in the last stage were recorded,
and the statistical curves would be drawn in a longer 5. Conclusions
period. The curves can be used as reference of project
performance, also can clearly reflect various issues of Scrum is an excellent agile methodology to release
project plan and progress control, from which, the software product rapidly and correctly. It gives all
relatively short-term results can be seen, usually it will team members the new management responsibilities.
be greatly encouraged to the project team members. The process of the project management is visible and
5. A number of communication every week: every controllable. The Scrum Master and Product Owner
morning a 10-minute face-to-face Scrum regular dont need to write the redundant documents and draw
meeting took place, so that members shared the up the unrealistic project plan. The team members
progress each other, and updated the completed become more active due to self-organizing and self-
mandates to completed list, from start list chose a managing. It makes not only the smooth development
new mandate updating to allocated list. of software, but also the entire development process
In a regular meeting every Friday, in addition to the easy and fun.
communication of work, surveys on feeling index and
pressure index, and the entertainment concerning over 6. References
every member of the emotion and satisfaction would
be on. At the same time technical exchanges for 30 [1] Jim Highsinith. Agile Project Management[M]. Qinghua
minutes were added to the Friday meeting, there were Publishing House2005, 7.
some members spontaneously declare themselves [2] SCRUM Home Page, 2005,
experience this week in a brief, the information http://www.controlchaos.com, accessed May 19th, 2005.
requested access to knowledge base after the meeting. [3] Y. Monden, Toyota Production System, 2nd Ed.,
6. For the core tasks or critical paths of the project, IndustrialEngineering and Management Press, Norcross,
more compact on daily progress were taken: instead of GA,1993.
only carried on for the milestone tasks and new [4] Hohmann, Luke, Beyond SoftwareArchitecture;
members. It is not stand-up meetings in form, but a Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions[C]Boston
more random face-to-face chat or instant messaging, Addison-W esley2003.
individual or team work log. [5] Cockburn, Alistair. Writing Efective Use Cases[C].
7. Personnel management as the core: that is role BostonAddison-Wesley, 2001.
[6] Ambler, Scott. Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for
identification, personality assortment, technical
Extreme Programming and the Unified Report 4[R],
capacity assortment, technology and capacity No.4(April 2001).
development goals of team members, and timely [7] Rueping, Andreas. Agile Documentation: A Pattern
communication. For the project manager, goal Guide to Producing Lightweight Documents for Software
determination must start from fillips, such as in aspect Projects[C]New York: Johi1 Wiley& Sons, . 2003.
of roles, developing as technology management role, [8] Schwaber, Ken, and MikeBeede1. Agile Software
as integrator and quality assurance role, or as Development with Scrum[M]. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
management role. Such real development goals, Prentice Hall, 2002.
everyone can see their progress soon. [9] Verzuh, Eric. The Fast Forward MBA in Project
8. Continuous improvement: In general after 3-5 Management[C]. New York: John Wi1ey& Sons, 1999.
stages, the next item new process would be coming, [10] Project Management Institute. A Guide to the Project
Management Body of Knowledge[R]. 2000 ed. New Square.
on this occasion, we collected all previous statistics on PA: Project Management Institute, 2000.
progress, member satisfaction, the tracking problems [11] Cockburn, Alistair. Surviving Object-Oriented
and technical issues, analyzed and concluded to Project[C]. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1 998.
determine the improvement measures and targets of the [12] Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team[C].
next stage. San Franiso: Josey-Bass, 2002.
There was a very important aspect in the summery, [13] R.H. Hayes, S.C. Wheelwright, K.B. Clark, Dynamic
which is member management. In this longer stage, Manufacturing: Creating the Learning Organization, Free
some has very fast progress, some has undertaken core Press, New York, 1988.
tasks, some was always rush in progress, while some

29