An Introduction to Project Planning with Scrum

For those familiar with traditional software project management, Scrum may appear to be organised chaos. For a start, how can you have a project without a project manager? Although Scrum is a collaborative effort and lacks the command-and-control structure of conventional projects, its light and uncomplicated framework is extremely effective at taking a concept and developing it into a product. A Scrum project can be included in a programme or a portfolio, just as traditional projects are grouped this way. Where the main difference lies is in the project planning and the focus on short-term goals, rather than a project completion date.

A traditional project is usually planned against time, with a specified completion date and interim milestones geared towards the software development lifecycle. A Scrum project is broken down into iterations (the “Sprints”). While Sprints are time-boxed, usually as a fortnightly or four-week event, the focus is on the amount of work that can be done and the value added during the Sprint, and not the timeline. As each Sprint is completed, there is an opportunity for improving the planning for the next phase.

Planning Mechanisms

Project planning for Scrum is conducted in mandatory meetings. There are two main planning meeting types:-

• The Release Planning meeting
• the Sprint Planning meeting

However, all Scrum meetings contain some element of planning, so the following meetings also contribute to the project planning cycle:-

• Daily Standup meetings
• Sprint Retrospectives
• Sprint Review meetings

While the majority of meetings held consist of Scrum team members only, there are also meetings that require participation of external stakeholders, both to get their input to the project plan and to present deliverables to them.

Recommended Further Reading

The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: