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What is it?

eXtreme Programming (XP) focuses more on the programming aspect of Agile – pair programming, refactoring code, continuous integration of working code and test driven development.

XP has five core values, and we’ll compare them to the Scrum core values.

1. Simplicity

Find the simplest thing that could possibly work. Keeping things simple means removing complexity and waste in the development.

“Occam’s Razor”

2. Communication

Transparent, frequent, face-to-face communication is best for a project team.

Co-located where possible.

3. Feedback

Feedback on the product and on the team process.

Fail fast and fail early to get feedback on what’s not working before getting too invested in the project approach.

4. Courage

The courage to speak up, put ego aside, be vulnerable. Code is visible to everyone all the time on an XP project. Courage to put your work out there for others to review, inspect, and edit.

5. Respect

The team respects each others’ ideas, culture, values, and how they work to get results. Quality and the success or failure of the project is everyone’s responsibility.

– David McLachlan

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What is it?

“Ceremonies” is the term for meetings and events when working in a Scrum team. Let’s look at the seven Scrum ceremonies and how to using them.

1. Backlog refinement meeting

The product owner, the Scrum Master, and the development team work together to discuss and prioritise the backlog items.

2. Sprint planning meeting

The team determines how much work they can take on from the prioritized backlog for the next sprint (two-week iteration).

This is based on estimates of the items, and velocity of the team.

The selected items from the product backlog become the sprint backlog and the goal of the sprint.

3. The Daily Scrum

This is a 15-minute daily meeting, sometimes called a “stand-up” (where everyone stands around the Kanban board).

The development team and the Scrum Master each take turns answering three questions:

What have I accomplished since the last Daily Scrum?
What will I accomplish before the next Daily Scrum?
Is there anything blocking my work?

4. The Scrum of Scrums

In larger projects or programs there are multiple teams working within the same “program of work”.

A representative from each team meets in a Scrum of Scrums (often one to three times a week) to report on each team’s progress. They answer the same Scrum questions plus a fourth: Will our team be putting something in another team’s way?

5. The Scrum of Scrum of Scrums

In larger programs, you may have overlapping projects or programs, where a representative from each scrum of scrums may attend this scrum of scrum of scrums. The same scrum of scrum questions are asked.

This is typically getting up to the executive level, where multiple programs are involved.

6. Sprint Review

At the end of each sprint, the development team demonstrates the work they’ve accomplished for the product owner, the Scrum Master, and other key stakeholders.

This is an opportunity to see, feel and touch the feature and garner any feedback necessary before signing the feature off as done.

7. Sprint Retrospective

After the sprint review, and before the next sprint planning meeting, the development team meets to discuss and answer:

What worked well,
What needs improvement,
What did we learn, and;
What still puzzles us.

This feedback goes back into the process to improve for future iterations.

– David McLachlan

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