Product BackLog
Few days ago I was talking to some friends here about scrum, it’s roles (scrum master, product owner and the team), and the artifact we work with “The product backlog”.
Then we started to discuss about the product backlog scope, how things appear there, how to manage it, and so on. Then he complained that he disagree about the idea that scrum says that we cannot keep put things inside the sprint backlog after we have started the sprint.
Well, the thing is that scrum has a work flow to operate upon, that is the SPRINT BACKLOG ! the backlog is the artifact where the development will be driven by implementing it. Also, the sprint backlog was chosen by the product owner as the most valuable features to be implemented, and of course we won’t be able to implement everything on a single sprint ( I’m talking about to develop an Enterprise Software ). Furthermore, team has also committed themselves that it’s a feasible work to be done.
Saying that means that it’s not possible to keep inserting things in the middle of the sprint, develop, test and integrate it. It will be possible to add more things if we are ahead of schedule, of course nobody wants to be stopped waiting for the next sprint. But we should be careful about this, what else we’re going to merge 2 or more sprints in one, and we won’t be able to deliver anything in the end.
That is the role of Scrum Master, to coach/mentor the team and the product owner, remove anything that is blocking the work to be done, and facilitate people’s lives.