Scrum Health Check

The most widely adopted agile framework: iterative development in sprints with clear roles, events, and artifacts. The Scrum Guide has been freely available since 2020.

Jeff Sutherland & Ken Schwaber Scrum Guide

What is Scrum?

Scrum is a lightweight framework for developing complex products. It is based on empiricism (transparency, inspection, adaptation) and defines three roles, five events, and three artifacts.

Roles

  • Product Owner — accountable for product value and the Product Backlog
  • Scrum Master — ensures effective application of Scrum and removes impediments
  • Developers — the self-organizing team that delivers the Increment

Events

  • Sprint — the heartbeat: a fixed time-box (1–4 weeks)
  • Sprint Planning — what will be delivered? How will it be done?
  • Daily Scrum — 15-minute synchronization
  • Sprint Review — show the result, gather feedback
  • Sprint Retrospective — improve the process

Artifacts

  • Product Backlog — prioritized list of all requirements
  • Sprint Backlog — selected items + plan for the sprint
  • Increment — the working result at the end of the sprint

Scrum Health Check

Rate your Scrum practice on each dimension (1 = very weak, 5 = excellent)

Are sprints consistently upheld, or are they regularly cancelled or extended?

Weak Strong 3

Is the product backlog prioritized, estimated, and equipped with clear acceptance criteria?

Weak Strong 3

Is the Daily Scrum focused, short, and useful — or a status meeting?

Weak Strong 3

Are improvement actions from retrospectives actually implemented?

Weak Strong 3

Is the Product Owner reachable and making decisions in a timely manner?

Weak Strong 3

Can the team decide on its own how to reach the sprint goals?

Weak Strong 3

Is there a clear, lived Definition of Done that is consistently applied?

Weak Strong 3

Do you get real feedback from stakeholders during Sprint Reviews?

Weak Strong 3

Inspiriert von Jeff Sutherland & Ken Schwaber — Scrum Guide

Applied to

Weiterlesen

Trivia

  • The name "Scrum" comes from rugby — a scrum is the formation where the whole team pushes the ball forward together.
  • Jeff Sutherland developed Scrum in 1993 at Easel Corporation — inspired by a Harvard article on Japanese product development.
  • The Scrum Guide has been updated seven times since 2010. The 2020 version is the shortest (13 pages).
  • More than 80% of all agile teams worldwide use Scrum or Scrum-based hybrids.