Willing to keep your team and stakeholders aligned during your project? Ever considered trying to use Scrum artifacts in your business? Using Scrum artifacts is necessary for your Scrum team if you care about the success of your projects.
Scrum Artifacts give vital information that is required to be known by the Scrum Team and the stakeholders to understand the product being developed, the work being planned, and the work completed in the project.
The word artifact is usually connected with archaeological remains and old relics. However, in software development, the word artifact is used to describe essential information required to develop a product.
Agile has its specific by-products that arise out of the scrum experience of planning, development, monitoring, and iteration of work to develop software. CSM certification will help you to understand deeply about scrum.
What are Scrum Artifacts?
Scrum Artifacts are like information tools in the Scrum way of working. They inform the team and anyone who’s interested in the project about what’s going on with the product. They indicate what should be done, what is in progress, and what’s completed. These artifacts ensure everyone easily understands how the project is proceeding and what is going on at every stage.
Types of Scum Artifacts
There are 7 types of artifacts, namely:
- Product Vision
- Product Backlog
- Sprint Vision
- Sprint Backlog
- Definition of Done (DOD)
- Product Increment
- Burndown Chart
Product Vision
The Product Vision in Scrum is a roadmap or a long-term objective of a project/product. It is a representation of the overall goal of the product being developed and provides the team members with direction and focus. The Product Vision is also referred to as the high-level definition of what the product intends to offer and the value it expects to deliver to its customers or users. It must be evident, concise, and readily comprehensible to all the collaborating individuals who work on the project.
The product owner enhances the product vision using stakeholder requirements together with market trends and business goals. Regular evaluation and modifications to the vision become vital to sustain its effectiveness and accuracy regarding project objectives throughout time. You must have to enroll in Product owner training to streamline your product vision.
Product Backlog
The Product Backlog, as defined in Scrum, is a prioritized and evolving list of all the work that needs to be done to release a product. It is a key document serving as the single authoritative source for information regarding the product’s features and requirements for the Scrum team.
A significant list of all the features, enhancements, fixes, and other requirements that are employed for developing a product is referred to as the product backlog. It is utilized for the entire set of potential tasks the development team might carry out to develop the end product.
The product backlog is made up of three different types of items:
- User Stories: High-level summaries of features in the language of the end-product user.
- Bugs: Defects that have appeared and must be repaired, as defined by the product owner.
- Tasks: Tasks assigned to the Scrum team to complete.
The development team should clearly define and understand the Product Backlog items to facilitate effective planning and setting priorities, though they don’t always have to be fully defined or calculated at the outset. The development team can provide estimates for the backlog items during improvement sessions to assist the product owner in making well-informed decisions when setting priorities. It contains user stories, epics, or any other product backlog items with their priorities and estimates.
Sprint Vision
A Sprint Goal is a concise statement that defines the Scrum team’s goals for a specific duration called a sprint, which is usually between two and four weeks. It provides the team’s work within the sprint with direction and purpose, steering them towards one goal.
- During the Sprint Vision process one declares the specific outcomes and goals that the team needs to achieve within the sprint timeframe.
- The specified goal must be both clear and measurable to achieve targets during the allotted sprint period.
- The Sprint team works together in the planning meeting to establish the Sprint Vision which receives comments from both the product owner and those present.
- The sprint begins only after the product owner confirms that everyone understands the sprint objectives which were polished during preparation.
Sprint backlog.
The Scrum team documents its work commitments for each sprint duration which spans between two to four weeks in the Sprint Backlog. The sprint backlog brings together all required tasks that serve to achieve the sprint goal through team planning.
Teams within Scrum create the Sprint Backlog during initial Sprint planning meetings which happen before every sprint. The team selects backlog items from the Product Backlog and dissects them into smaller tasks during the session which will fit within the current sprint period.
The sprint backlog operates through a task board divided into sections for different work stages. These sections carry specific names which appear in the task boards.
- The upcoming tasks that have not initiated their execution fall under this category.
- The active work zone is named Doing.
- The tasks that exist in this stage have been finished yet need someone else to do the verification work.
- This designation shows that the task completion runs final thus no more work remains needed.
Work items of the Scrum team find their place in the Sprint Backlog while also serving as an ongoing worklist of promised tasks for a sprint. The plan of action helps the team focus on its responsibilities by offering visibility and concentration and flexibility to guarantee the sprint targets meet their deadlines. The user stories, their acceptance criteria together with estimates and task execution details make up this backlog.
Definition of Done (DoD)
Scrum teams use Definition of Done (DoD) as a workspace checklist to confirm that individual work pieces address necessary quality requirements along with team standards. The Definition of Done serves as collective agreement within a team about specific requirements which determine how a task reaches completion.
- The Definition of Done is more of a set of guidelines for expectations of work item quality and completeness.
- It helps in understanding the conditions that need to be met for a task or user story to be declared release-ready by the team and stakeholders.
- The stakeholders and team assess whether each finished user story or task meets the Definition of Done in the Sprint Review. If it does not meet the requirements, then it’s not complete and should be refined prior to its release.
Product Increment
The Scrum development team creates an end-user-useable, connected, and integrated physical, usable, and potentially releasable version of the product in a Sprint, called the Product Increment. It is a set of all features, enhancements, and user stories that were completed and tested during the Sprint.
- The Product Increment is not merely a set of various features but rather an end-user-useable, connected, and integrated version of the product.
- It meets the Definition of Done and is releasable, potentially, meaning that customers or stakeholders can take it if they want to.
- By focusing on creating a consistent and valuable product, the Product Increment fosters integration and teamwork. Besides making sure that all members of the team work towards a common goal of delivering value to the customer, it supports cross-functional teamwork.
- It encompasses all the improvements, enhancements, and fixes done throughout the Sprint, with a concrete and functional part of the product.
Burndown Chart
A Burndown Chart is a graph that indicates the quantity of work that has been completed by a team within a specific time period, usually during a Scrum Sprint. The comparison of the work to be done with the available time, assists the team in understanding if they are likely to achieve their goals.
The status of the team is shown by the Burndown Chart, which is kept updated from time to time, even on a daily basis. The team is able to discern trends and adapt their approach whenever needed to become better in subsequent Sprints by tracking their trend over time.
Conclusion
These artifacts are connected to each other and inform. The product vision, for example, guides the product backlog creation, which affects sprint planning and done definition, in turn affecting the final product increment. These are the core scrum artifacts, but other artifacts and tools could be employed by the team needs and the specific project. Scrum projects have to be guided and utilized correctly for these artifacts to succeed.
