At GameLab, we use Scrum as the project management method for our projects. As not everyone is familiar with Scrum and a refresher is always useful, we invited experienced Scrum trainer Sergio Boontjes to refresh our knowledge.
Students at GameLab hold daily stand-ups, planning sessions and retrospectives. However, working with Scrum in a professional setting is new to most of them. An additional challenge is that their teams are small. They undertake some projects individually or in pairs.
The Scrum workshop included some theory: what is Scrum, and what are its key concepts? Students then had the opportunity to ask questions using a format called “Agile Coffee”. Sergio Boontjes asked them to formulate questions and post them on a Trello board. We then voted on the questions to decide which should take priority.
The questions were discussed one by one, with a five-minute timebox per topic. We did not always keep to that limit, as there was plenty to say about some subjects, but it helped keep the meeting focused.
Some of the questions we discussed:
- How do you handle changes during a sprint?
1) When you reach a new insight yourself;
2) when a client suddenly introduces new priorities; or
3) when high-priority bugs arise? - What is the best approach to sprint refinement?
- What exactly is a Scrum Master responsible for?
- How should you approach Scrum when you are the product owner, client and Scrum Master yourself?
It was an instructive session. Sergio’s knowledge and external perspective were complemented by our own substantive discussions. We did not have time to cover every question. A second round is planned, when we will also examine individual teams’ Scrum boards and how they can improve refinement, planning and prioritisation.