Organization is a key aspect of life. Achieving a set goal is always easy when there is a process and arrangement on how it will be carried out. There will be no product management without the word,’ organization’ in view. This is the whole idea of Scrum in agile methodology.

What is Scrum?

When you hear Scrum, the next thing that should come to mind is organization. Scrum is created to organize teamwork. It contains all the statements that may be great or not-so-great, given by all the Scrum Team members, customers, and stakeholders.

Think of it as gathering ideas after discussion with customers or users and members of the team on the kind of product and breaking these ideas into bits in order of priority. Scrum is an agile method of iterative and incremental product delivery that uses frequent feedback and collaborative decision-making.

It is aimed at releasing working software at the end of every sprint.

Scrum is applied by following a set of ceremonies, or meetings which includes planning, review and activities that center around roadmaps, backlogs and sprints.

Having a basic understanding of Scrum, it is important to know what some terminologies used in scrum means.

Backlogs

This represents a list of tasks to do. You can call it features broken into epics and user stories to be implemented in the development of products. In simpler terms, think of it as a list of ingredients you need to make your food sweet or wholesome.

Sprint

This is a timeframe or a short period where backlogs (tasks) are expected to be accomplished. So, you create a backlog first, then group each task into sprints and give a time frame for it to be fulfilled.

RoadMap

You can simply refer to this as a product timetable which has epics broken into user stories with an expected time and date of completion. It is a bigger picture that contains all that there is to develop in a product with an expected date of delivery.

Reports

This is an important aspect of working with scrum. From time to time, there is a need to have a review of work done and this is where reports come into play. We have the burndown chart which represents the amount of work remaining in the backlog.

At the start of the new week, our product management team was charged with the task to work on a TO-DO app. The task centers on performing the whole scrum process and ceremony on the Jira software. To do this, we had to onboard all team members on Jira software and the team scrum board.

Before this is made possible, Team members signed up on Jira software and sent in their emails to be added. This process is quite easy and there are so many guides and videos online on how to come on board on Jira.

Next, is the brainstorming session on what we want our TO-DO app to look like, the features and what is of utmost importance. After this was agreed upon, we proceeded to make an online document where we grouped each feature into backlogs and sprints. Here is a breakdown of the main features required on our TO-DO app;

• Signup/Sign in page

• Homepage

• Add Task/Task Creation

• Reminders

• Calendar Synchronisation

• Edit Task

• Delete Tasks

• Task Category

• Reports

• Badge

• Settings

  These features are arranged in order of priority. After which we proceeded to create a roadmap on scrum using JIRA software.

As earlier stated, the roadmap is more or less a timetable that comprises the whole workflow or activity. After this is done, backlogs were created and then moved to sprints.

Here, the team gets to work within the expected timeframe. Once work begins the scrum master or assigned personnel is expected to click on the start sprint button. In addition to this, there is a board made available on the software where you can view and move the work progress from start to completion.

For context, The backlogs (tasks) were divided into 4 sprints and are to be completed in a week. This is a test project to show how scrum ceremonies are run on Jira software. It is not a project that would fully be developed. In practicality, the project timeframe for sprint completion usually ranges from 2-4 weeks or more depending on the team and the project in progress.

In conclusion, reports were generated from this activity. The software provided us with the following reports;

• Burnup report

• Sprint burndown chart

• Velocity report

• Cumulative flow report

• Cycle Time report and Deployment frequency report

For this project, we will be considering the Burnup and Sprint burndown chart report.

The Sprint burndown chart shows the completed and incomplete work remaining in a sprint. There is the option of filtering to search for the sprint name or number and the estimation field. This is very useful to the team as it keeps the team in check on the next course of activity.

Burnup report visualises the completed work and compares it to the general scope. It is great working and collaborating on the Jira software. As a new user there would be issues trying to navigate or complete the processes. This can easily be worked on by constant practice, research and use of the platform.

It is indeed a great tool for collaboration, you should give it a try.