10 SCRUM Methodology Best Practices

Here is a list of some best practices about scrum:

• Burn down charts can be used to monitor sprint status. Graphical representations are better than tabular list views in planning.

• Planning poker is a useful way to determine sprint item finish durations. And using Fibonacci numbers is a good practice for planning poker numbers.

• ROI (Return on Investment) values are useful to determine item priorities in a sprint. Planning poker can be used to determine ROI values.

• Using a board and simple planning/reporting tools (e.g. excel, sprintometer, projectsimple) are important and enough as process quality equipments.

• Scrum methodology does not offer documenting everything, but this does not mean "no documentation". Really needed documentation can be done as required.


• Daily meetings must not be longer than 15 minutes. Scrum is an agile methodology and no one needs to listen other members' problem details. These details may be discussed after daily meeting with scrum master with only required subset of team members.


• Stand up meeting style is better for daily meetings, to keep meeting short. Also meeting location and time are recommended to be the same for each day.


• Product backlog may contain items which will not be developed. According to ROI values, some items may not be developed and this is normal. Product backlog should contain all possible items anyway. Give backlog items ID numbers, to manage simply.


• Sprint length (in weeks) changes are not recommended. But according to the sprint retrospective meeting results, sprint week lengths may be changed if there are really important reasons.


• 6 hours per a day is a realistic planning input. Total sprint hour capacity can be calculated as: (number of team members) * (number of sprint days) * 6 hours

For general information about SCRUM:
http://codebuild.blogspot.com/2011/08/scrum-software-development-methodology.html