Scrum FAQs

Below is a list of common Scrum questions. These question arise naturally when reading a good Scrum Primer. The questions are intended to be read and answered as a team. 

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• Scrum is for solving complex problems. What makes something complex? What makes scrum useful for dealing with complexity?
• The fundamental unit in Scrum is the team. What other fundamentals are there?
• Scrum is a social agreement to be empirical as a team. How can we frame this agreement?
• How do you define a stakeholder? Do they form the context in which the team exists?
• When we define scrum we start with a simple central model. Is the intro to scrum about scaling or are the authors assuming a small team model to start with?
• How does the PO figure out what will please the stakeholders? How do they help the stakeholder explore what they want in a product? Which do you prefer interactive models or large surveys?
• What happens when the PO does not have a direction for the team?
• Why is it important that each team member be accountable to the rest of the team? What happens when they are not?
• What is the difference between a team that is self directed and self organizing? Is scrum predicated on one or the other? How can you tell when one or the other is happening?
• In general, how quickly will the PO want something done? What happens when the PO has undue influence over the team? Who would help detect and prevent that?
• The product backlog is a prioritized list. Is it?
• What does the word backlog mean to you? If it is in the backlog does that mean we are supposed to do it?
• There are two lists of work in scrum Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog. What is the difference between these two? How does the team view them? How do stakeholders the PO view them?
• Who can add things to the Product Backlog? When is the backlog too long? What can you do about long lists of information?
• What is analysis in product development?
• What does agile analysis in product development mean?
• Why is Backlog Grooming a continuous process throughout the project?
• Vision provides focus and roadmaps provide guidance.  What's the distinction between these concepts? Is it a useful distinction?
• Why does scrum emphasize fixed-length iterations?
• If you releases are take only a sprint long, is release planning just handled during the sprint planning session? Is it planned as part of the sprint work?
• Do the release goals collapse to sprint goals if you release each sprint? How much intentional structure do your teams need to keep focused and track of what is going on?
• Can information gleaned from doing a sprint, modify the release strategy and the number of sprints planned?
• What is the smallest length of time possible for a sprint?
• Is the focus of sprint planning to agree to a commitment or figure out how much we can get the team to do? Do we use a previous sprints velocity to figure out how much more work we can get out of the team this sprint (i.e. increase amount of work by 10-15% each time)?
• Teams swarm on items. Why is it not more organized? Is team swarm a sign of disorder energy that can be better directed?
• When should Backlog Grooming occur? Who should schedule the work?
• Is the retrospective really necessary? Does it matter if team evaluates it? After all if is very simple already. Arguably this can be done for a few months and abandoned since the team knows what it needs to do.