Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Agile and scrum?

Agile is a category of software development methodologies that are based on iterative and incremental approaches. Scrum is an Agile framework that focuses on development by cross-functional teams that work in time-boxed units referred to as sprints.

What are the required members for a scrum team?

The roles for a scrum team include: product owner, scrum master, and development team. The development team includes any team member required to build the product, including software developers, quality assurance engineers, user experience engineers, technical writers, etc.

How many members can be on a scrum team?

The ideal scrum team contains approximately 5-9 people. Larger teams have too much administrative overhead to manage effectively. Smaller teams often do not contain all of the cross-functional roles needed to produce the product or do not have enough members to create functionality in short iterations.

What are story points?

Story points are a measure of the effort required to complete of a user story. Story points indicate the relative size of a story. The story points alone do not indicate the amount of time a team needs to complete a user story.

What is a sprint?

A sprint is a defined period of time (or time box) within which a defined amount of work is done.

What is the optimal length of a sprint?

In Scrum, sprints generally last between 2 and 4 weeks. Teams need to determine which length works best for them, but once the length is established, it should remain consistent for all sprints.

What is velocity?

Velocity is an average amount of work (measured in story points) that the scrum team completes each sprint. Only the points for fully completed user stories counts towards the team’s velocity.

What is the difference between the sprint backlog and the product backlog?

The product backlog is the list of items needed to develop the product, including feature enhancements and bug fixes. The sprint backlog is the set of stories from the product backlog that the team plans to complete in a given iteration (or sprint). The items designated for the sprint backlog are selected during the sprint planning meeting.

How many story points can a team complete within a sprint?

The number of story points that can be completed by a team is dependent on many factors, including how the team assigns story points and on the number of members of the development team. Story points are a relative measure of size. Two teams might size the same story with a different number of story points, while still able to complete the work within a sprint of the same length. The number of points that a particular team can complete is based on the team’s velocity.

Do you have to ship product at the end of each sprint?

You do not have to ship your product at the end of the sprint, although you should have a “potentially shippable product”. This means that the product is working and has been tested. You may choose to delay shipping until more features have been included in your product in a later sprint, but your product should be shippable at the end of each sprint.

What do you do when the work is not completed at the end of the sprint?

User stories that have not been completed should be evaluated for inclusion in the next sprint during the sprint planning meeting. If product priorities have changed, it might not be necessary to complete unfinished work. Unfinished work does not count towards a team’s velocity.

Does a scrum team need to be co-located?

Co-location is not mandatory, but the Agile principles indicate that:

“The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.”
Certainly, collaboration with co-located teams is easier, but it not always possible to avoid distributed teams. If you team is not co-located, team members need to be diligent about being available and must rely technology (including video and web conferencing) to stay connected.

Do I need to use any special tools?

You do not need any particular tools to manage the work of your scrum teams, although there are a number of tools to choose from. You need to track your product backlog (including acceptance criteria and story points) and your sprint backlog (including the work that is being completed). You will want a tool to track your team’s velocity as well as to create burn up and burndown charts. You can do a lot of this documentation on sticky notes in a conference room, but if you have distributed teams, you will want something that is more easily shared digitally.