Before I joined Manifesto as a digital producer, I was new to the world of digital. I had some project management experience but I knew that I would need to invest a lot of time and learning into understanding how to run big projects if I was going to become a successful project manager.
In at the deep end with Scrum
What drew me to Manifesto in the first place was their keen interest in their employees. I knew that they were just as interested in my career progression as I was. On my very first day, I was thrown into a new way of working: Scrum. I quickly picked up the basics (daily stand-ups, demos, retrospectives and planning meetings) working on projects for The Children’s Society, Cabinet Office and Cancer Research UK among others.
Why Agile?
The most common methodology for managing projects is Waterfall and larger organisations tend to favour this method. There is a lot of risk involved with waterfall projects but Agile, a competing project management style, is on the increase and with good reason. Agile allows for quicker releases because requirements are gathered as and when they are needed rather than at the start. This also allows the requirements to change part of the way through.
Scrum provides a framework for working in an Agile way. The process is very transparent with daily stand-ups, sprint retrospectives and product demonstrations.
Going pro on the CSM course
Working within the Scrum methodology can be tricky to grasp at times. I knew at some point I would need to gain more insight into the whole process and become a Certified ScrumMaster, something which Manifesto were only too happy to put me forward for in February this year.
For 2 days, 16 of us sat in a room together and we learned all aspects of the Scrum process. With our trainers, and Manifesto’s very own Jim Bowes, we discussed everything from who is part of the development team to understanding how to scale Scrum for larger projects.
Matt and Jim explained everything to us very clearly and concisely and, most importantly, in a fun and practical way. We spent most of the 2 days standing and working in teams as we went through various different scenarios trying to understand how to break the Agile/Scrum processes down.
Practical Agile
You’re probably thinking ‘that’s great but how do you apply this to your projects?’
Before a project starts, there will be a with some members of the team. This is a chance to gather all the information about what the product needs to do for the client/business. It’s also a chance for the team to feedback on any technical limitations that might arise during development.
During the CSM course, we partook in a mock visioning session to learn how to ask the right questions of the client to get their exact needs from them. The ScrumMaster then helps the team break these requirements down into stories which can be prioritised by the Product Owner.
Another key thing I picked up was in relation to understanding where the bottlenecks are within the project. It could be that you have 50-60 story point’s worth of work to test but only enough resource for 1 tester. A good ScrumMaster will see where there is a skill gap and make a plan for filling it – whether that is cross-skilling the team or finding budget to hire a new resource.
Something I use on a day-to-day basis in running projects is to understand how to slice stories into smaller pieces of work. In order to have minimum viable product at the end of each sprint, the ScrumMaster and Product Owner work together to break a story down into smaller pieces which still deliver value to the customer.
Key learnings from the CSM course
Some of the key points I learned during the 2 days were:
The agile way of doing things is an iterative process where you deliver a minimum viable product in sprint for the client and iterate over it to make it better in the next sprint. This is favoured over the incremental approach of waterfall where something cannot move on until the previous phase has been completed.
With waterfall the longer the project the higher the risk. With Agile methods there is continuous inspection which allows you to adapt to changing requirements.
Scrum is product based, not project based – meaning that the product itself is the star of the show and not the managers, developers or stakeholders. At the end of each sprint, there is a potentially shippable product that can be released if the Product Owner so wishes.
With Scrum you can release value much more quickly – whether it is value to the business or to the end user.
Scrum promotes self-organisation meaning that the team itself takes responsibility to deliver a certain amount within a given sprint. The Product Owner and the ScrumMaster do not decide for the team how much work will be done or what stories will be worked on. The development team alone decide this.
Exam stress
A few days after the course finished, I sat down in a quiet room and took the test in order to become certified. I finished the test and, rather apprehensively, clicked on submit. Waiting for the results page to come through was sheer agony. However, it was all in my head and I was delighted when I saw that I had passed with flying colours, making me a certified scrum master!
Iterating for success
Since the CSM course I’ve been referring back to my notes regularly to make sure I am following the main principles of Scrum. Agile is not always easy to get right but, with practice, I’m hoping to get better and better at it with each exciting project.
The post My journey to becoming a Certified ScrumMaster appeared first on Manifesto.