Use scrum artifacts to develop and deliver products
5 min
Beginner
By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:
- Identify the three scrum artifacts and their role in scrum events
- Explain the commitments for each artifact and their purpose
Scrum artifacts represent work or value
Scrum artifacts are designed to maximize transparency of key information such as progress and upcoming projects, enabling everyone to inspect and adapt work based on the same information. There are three scrum artifacts:
- Product backlog: The list of items needed to deliver a product.
- Sprint backlog: The list of items needed by the end of the sprint.
- Increment: A measurable step towards the product goal.
Each artifact has a commitment, or goal, which provides information about what needs to be done and what success looks like, that scrum teams use to measure progress against.
- The product backlog’s commitment is the product goal.
- The sprint backlog’s commitment is the sprint goal.
- The increment’s commitment is the definition of done.
👇 Each scrum artifact has a commitment.
Let’s explore how you can use scrum artifacts as part of the scrum framework.
Product backlog
The product backlog is a list of what is needed to improve or complete a product, owned by the product owner. The product backlog commitment is the product goal.
The product goal is the long-term objective for the scrum team and is achieved when all items from the product backlog are complete. It serves as a target for the scrum team to plan against. The scrum team must fulfill (or abandon) one goal before taking on the next.
Anyone in the team can make a suggestion or request (to the product owner) to add anything to the product backlog at any time. The product owner is the final authority on prioritizing the order of the product backlog.
Let’s explore an example.
SunshineBank wants to increase user-friendliness of their banking app while maintaining its security. Their product goal is to reduce customer support inquiries by 30% within the next year.
👇Click the tabs below to explore how SunshineBank uses the product backlog to guide work for the product goal.
The product backlog contains a list of all the work to complete to meet the product goal. For example:
- Add facial recognition for iOS users
- Enhance FAQs for customer support
- Improve account overview screens
- Allow users to create custom categories for identifying transactions
Sprint backlog
The sprint backlog consists of three key components: the sprint goal, which defines the purpose (why), a selection of product backlog items designated for the sprint (what), and a practical plan outlining how to deliver the increment, such as who will be working on which items and when (how).
The sprint backlog is a highly visible, real-time picture of the work that the developers or team members plan to accomplish during the sprint with its commitment being the sprint goal.
Let’s return to the SunshineBank example to see what this looks like.
The developers have committed to two items in this sprint based on the product backlog they received. Their sprint backlog is composed of three things.
👇Click the icons below to explore the team's sprint backlog.
Increment
An increment is a measurable step to the product goal. Each increment relies on all prior increments and should be thoroughly verified, ensuring that all increments work together. In order to provide value, the increment must be usable.
👇 Click the icons below to explore some examples of increments.
Work cannot be considered part of an increment unless it meets its commitment to the definition of done. The definition of done provides everyone with a shared understanding of the standards of work that are required as part of the increment. In general, items that apply to every area of the teams work should be included, such a quality assurance checks and fixes while overly specific details may not be included.
Using the SunshineBank app update as an example, the first increment can only be considered ‘done’ after the following:
- All testing completed
- Defects identified and resolved
- Code review completed and passed
- Security requirements met
Each increment's list will be unique to the project or product you are working on, so expect the number of items in the definition of done to vary.
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What is the Agile Manifesto?
- What is the Agile Movement?
- The Agile Manifesto
- Twelve principles
- What is scrum?