Getting Started with Agile-Scrum Methodology - Planning, Monitoring : Part III

Welcome to another most important section of Agile-Scrum methodology.Planning is one of the pillar stones in project management practice.If you are now thinking of the other pillars  - there are all together 4 pillar stones which are Planning, Organizing, Monitoring and Controlling.All these are equally important though planning is significant and mostly important as it is the stepping stone of the project.

In Agile-Scrum Planning happens in 2 steps.

As explained in Part I prioritized product backlog items are considered for the sprint and during the sprint planning meeting which all the team members participate, they turn the backlog items in to several user stories.

Ex:

Backlog Item: User Authentication

User Stories :

1.As a system administrator users should be able to enter their details and register with the system so that the information can be used for other marketing activities.

2.As a user I should be able to enter my username and the password and login in to my account so that I have maintain my own wishlist.

3.As a system administrator the users should not be able to try the password more than three times so that I can guarantee the security level of the system to the existing customers.

These user story stories needs to be given story points based on their complexity, effort and doubt.

The user story then needs to be broken in to tasks which are more simpler units so that it is more easier and suitable for estimations.

Ex:

As a system administrator users should be able to enter their details and register with the system so that the information can be used for other marketing activities.

Tasks:

user registration form

registration form integration with the email and email generation

database entry

user interface

Then each task needs to be added an hourly estimation using the experience  and the skill level of the developer.

These hours can be used as the sprint estimation and at the end of the project the scrum master can create a graph using the estimated hours against the actual which will provide many information to the stake holders.

So this is simply the planning process of Agile-Scrum.

Please feel free to add your comments and correct me if you think anything needs to be corrected as it will help me as well as the readers of this blog to grow more and more.

Monitoring happens via the daily stand up meetings.This meeting needs to be held everyday for 15 minutes.Each team member needs to talk at the meeting on the tasks they attended, what they are planning to do and any issues faced.Daily stand up meeting keeps the team updated about the current  situation of the project and it creates the platform for the team to understand if they are on the plan or if they have deviated and get back to the original plan.

At the end of each scrum retrospective meeting needs to be hosted and the team with the scrum master, product owner and client if possible needs to attend to the meeting which will help the team to understand what went right and what went wrong.