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Retrospective_and_Sprint_Review.md

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What were the team’s roles, and what did they contribute?

  • Scrum Master: The Scrum Master facilitated Scrum events, such as daily standups, sprint planning, and retrospectives (like this discussion). This helped ensure that the team remained on track to meet project deadlines and that everyone was on the same page when there needed to be changes made quickly.
  • Product Owner: The product owner clearly communicated the vision for the SNHU Travel project, ensuring that the team understood the wants and needs of the end users. The product owner also helped with prioritizing and refining the project’s backlog.
  • Developer: Made sure to remain adaptable and collaborate when it came to solving problems (usually this would happen as a result of Scrum events, when people were able to ask for assistance or ideas for solving their blockers). They, of course, also developed the code for the project in an efficient manner such that they could meet deadlines and provide deliverables.
  • Tester: Kept the quality of the product in check, while efficiently communicating with the product owner to adjust or align priorities. The tester also clearly documented their testing processes via test cases, and when issues were found, the tester documented bugs with the necessary and complete details. When feedback or questions were needed answering, the tester was flexible and available to assist the team as needed.

How did the Scrum-Agile approach assist in delivering user stories?

The agile approach allowed for incremental development. With each sprint the team was able to deliver a usable component of the project. For instance, the earlier sprints involved planning and releasing an initial travel booking platform, but then as the user’s needs were specified and the project was iterated on, we adjusted to create a more ‘specialized’ travel planning platform.

How did the Agile approach support project completion when the project changed direction unexpectedly?

When new market/user research indicated a shift in travel preferences, the agile methodology allowed for the team to quickly pivot and incorporate new types of vacation packages, which exemplifies the agility of the team and the speed of the agile methodologies we utilized. (Updated user stories, updated test cases, congruent communication, etc.).

Was there any effective scrum/otherwise communications that helped to encourage team collaboration and agility?

As the developer, I was a bit lost on some of the concepts involved with the new transition, so I reached out to the product owner and the testers to make sure that I was on the same page while getting started. Here is an excerpt from the email that I wrote to them, “ As we move forward … I wanted to touch base to ensure we’re all aligned on expectations and deliverables …”, “ … Clarification on the acceptance criteria for each new feature or user story … “, “ - Regular feedback on the implemented features …”, “ - Test plan details to help guide prioritizing work”. Utilizing this type of regular communication to keep aligned on the team’s plans, priorities, and process, I believe, is fundamental to a successful and collaborative agile environment.

What organizational tools and Scrum-agile principles helped the team to be successful?

  • Azure Devops: Azure DevOps served as a critical organizational tool for the team, as it bundles an integrated suite of features that facilitate efficient cross-team communication, work tracking, sprint planning, source control, test planning, and deployments. By leveraging Azure DevOps, we effectively implemented Scrum-agile principles such as transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
  • Daily Standups: These brief meetings helped keep everyone informed about the project’s progress and quickly address any impediments.
  • “Customer collaboration over contract negotiation”: By continuously aligning with the customer’s needs and priorities, we fostered a collaborative relationship with the customer as advocated by the Agile Manifesto (Beck et al., 2001). This allowed for us to stay ahead of the curve when it came to prioritizing work and readjusting the direction of our project.

What are some pros and cons that the Scrum-agile approach presented?

Pros:

  • Team was able to be on the same page via continuous communication and collaboration.
  • Team was able to adjust to user needs at a moment’s notice, which helps with creating a product that will be used and enjoyed by the people for whom it was being made.

Cons:

  • A lot of meetings (which can be argued as something that can make the team more productive, but sometimes it can end up becoming too time consuming).
  • More uncertainty with what you (royal) may be working on- such as whether or not your test cases will even be useful tomorrow, etc.

Was a Scrum-agile approach the best approach for the SNHU Travel development project?

I think the Scrum-agile approach was the best option for our team as we were a small team that worked very close to each other. Especially while in the beginning phases of the project when there is a lot less confidence in our ability to roll out the project, and acquire user feedback, the ability to adjust requirements on-the-fly was incredibly valuable. If we worked on the project in another methodology like waterfall, we would have spent a lot of time upfront working on something, only for us to release it and find out it wasn’t actually what the users wanted/needed from our service.

Citations:
Beck, K., Beedle, M., van Bennekum, A., Cockburn, A., Cunningham, W., Fowler, M., ... & Thomas, D. (2001). Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Agile Alliance. http://agilemanifesto.org/