What are different processes involved in scrum development?

We have been witnessing the milestones achieved in the field of software engineering with the help of the scrum development process regarding the development of the agile projects. There is no doubt regarding the efficiency of the scrum development process in the terms of agility. 

It supports all the principles as stated by the agile manifesto for all the development methodologies and processes falling under the category of the agile software development processes. 

Initially the scrum approach to development was considered to be a holistic but eventually in by the year of 1995 it achieved its present form and was officially termed as the “SCRUM”. 

Scrum Development Cycle

The scrum methodology consists of various stages and processes that we are going to discuss in this article. The scrum development cycle is constituted of the below mentioned processes:

1. Creation of the product back log
2. Creation of the sprint back log
3. Sprint
4. Delivery of a shippable working increment of the software system or application.

- The product back log can be thought of as an ordered list of the requirements and specifications of the software product or the system that is to be developed and its creation is the responsibility of the product owner. 

- The product owner orders some product back log items and these items only are mentioned in the product back log.

- The product owner may order these product back log items based on any one of the following criteria:

1. Risk
2. Business value
3. Date needed
4. Dependencies and so on.

What is Product Back Log?

- The product back log is a list that is open to every one and all are free to edit it but, for any kind of changes and ordering the items, only the product owner is only held responsible. 

- Apart from the requirements, the rough estimates of the development efforts and business values are found in the product back log. 

- All these values appear in the back log but in the form of some story points developed by the means of some rounded Fibonacci sequence.

- With the help of these estimates the product owner is able to gauge the time line and influence the ordering of the back log items. 

- Contrary to all this, the efforts required for completing each back log item is estimated by the development team. 

What is Sprint Back Log?

- It can be thought of as a list of work or tasks that must be addressed by the development team in the sprint that is to follow. 

- The sprint back log is prepared by obtaining some selective features and stories form the product back log until the sprint includes enough tasks to be accomplished. 

- But while adding the tasks the velocity of the previous sprints should be taken care of by the development team. 

- The stories or the features are broken down in to smaller tasks that up on estimation would not exceed 16 hours of efforts by the development team. 

- This reduces the burden on the development team and helps them understand what is to be done. 

- Rather than assigning the tasks on the sprint back log, they are just signed up by the development team as required for the following sprint and according to the priority and skills of the development team. 

- The working increment that is delivered at the end of the sprint is the sum of all the product back log items that have been completed during that particular sprint and all the other sprints preceding it. 

- It is necessary that the increment is delivered in a working condition and is usable.