Increase the reach of website using Search Engine Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or paid search advertising involves a company paying to have its ad appear on search results pages of search engines. PPC advertising providers such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing show sponsored ads, or paid search results, for most search queries. A consumer intending to purchase a microwave oven for her new modular kitchen may enter a query “microwave oven with convection and grill for home use,” seeking cost and feature information. A chain of electric kitchen appliances would likely then appear as a sponsored result. It is often observed that users with a high intention of making a purchase click on sponsored ads. This is especially true of highly transactional goods such as clothing, electronics, and consumer foods. 

PPC advertising has a significant impact on consumer metrics such as brand awareness and brand image, even among users who do not click on the sponsored advertisements. Image ads tend to be more effective in exerting positive impact and increasing visibility in search results. A consumer seeking a new microwave oven may choose to review multiple electric kitchen appliances advice pages before making a decision.

A business can increase the reach of its website using PPC advertising in the following ways:

Choosing relevant Keywords–keywords are the search terms used by consumers to tell search engines about the specific product or service they are interested in purchasing. For businesses looking for maximizing their reach using PPC or search engine advertising, the focus must be on bidding on keywords that are highly relevant to the search queries that are common in their business. Businesses can make use of their historical data and competitor data to determine the popularity and relevance of various keywords.

The price of keywords can vary greatly, from pennies to several dollars depending on popularity, demand, and the value to the advertiser. The ad’s “quality score”, rank and popularity of the keywords among the competitors determine the price an advertiser has to pay. The quality score is the search engine’s way of determining the relevance of an ad to the searcher by evaluating each keyword’s relevance to the business and its landing page, as well as other factors. The rank of an ad is determined based on its cost-per-click (CPC) and its quality score.

Choosing relevant Geography and Time–search engines have enabled business to analyze their past data to determine where their online customers are located and the best time to reach them. Based on this data and other internal research, businesses can choose the desired geography and time of day in which they should advertise their products and services for optimal results. For small businesses that cater to a local audience, geography-based targeting is especially important and helps ensure that their ads remain relevant.

Profiling the audience–Businesses must understand the profile of their target audience and create “user personas” that will help them identify the relevant ads for their customer base. A young age group may be attracted to video ads, while a more mature audience may prefer an image ad. Audience profiling may also help businesses identify the time of day when their target audience is most likely to make a purchase.

Selecting appropriate Ad sizes–Advertisements displayed on search engines and other third-party sites are available in different sizes, and the digital marketing team must customize their marketing content to the size of the ad being displayed.

Testing various Ads– Search engines allow businesses to experiment with two or more ad options in order to identify the more attractive one, commonly referred to as A/B or multivariate testing. A business can divide its marketing budget between two or more ads to be displayed to a similar audience throughout the day if it is unsure about the most effective advertising message for its products or services.

Customizing Language–businesses can also customize their ads based on the language preference of their target audience to make sure the intended marketing message is relevant and reaches audiences around the world.

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What is Scrum of Scrums?

What is Scrum of Scrums and how does it work in the product development process? The first thing to know about Scrum of Scrums is that it acquires relevance only for large projects where multiple Scrum Teams are involved. In this process Scrum Team representatives convene for Scrum of Scrums Meetings in predetermined intervals or whenever required to collaborate and track their respective progress, impediments, and dependencies across teams.Normally, one member from each Scrum Team will represent his or her team in the Scrum of Scrums Meeting. In most cases, this is the Scrum Master, but at times someone else may represent the team. A single person may be nominated by the team to represent them in every Scrum of Scrums Meeting, or the representative may change over time, based on who can best fulfill the role depending on current issues and circumstances. Each person involved in the meeting should have the technical understanding to be able to identify instances in which teams could cause each other impediments or delays. Other important participants of Scrum of Scrums meeting include Chief Scrum Master and Chief Product Owner. The main purpose of the Scrum of Scrums Meeting is to communicate progress between multiple teams. The Chief Scrum Master (or any Scrum Master who would facilitate the Scrum of Scrums Meeting), can announce an agenda prior to the meeting. This allows individual teams to consider the agenda items in preparation for the Scrum of Scrums Meeting. Any impediments being faced by a team, which may also affect other teams, should be indicated so they can be conveyed at the Scrum of Scrums Meeting. In addition, if a team becomes aware of a large scale issue, change or risk that may affect other teams that should be communicated at the Scrum of Scrums Meeting. Outputs from the process Retrospect Sprint may have issues that could impact multiple Scrum Teams and could be used as an input for effective Scrum of Scrums Meeting. These meetings are preferably short (but usually not Time-boxed to allow for more sharing of information between teams) where a representative from each Scrum team meets to share status of the respective teams. The Scrum of Scrums Meeting is held at pre-determined intervals or when required by Scrum Teams, and these meetings facilitate the face-to-face sharing of information among different Scrum Teams through the Scrum of Scrums, issues, dependencies, and risks impacting multiple Scrum Teams can be closely monitored, which helps the various teams working on a large project better coordinate and integrate their work. It is the responsibility of the Chief Scrum Master (or another Scrum Master who facilitates the Scrum of Scrum Meetings) to ensure that all representatives have an environment conducive to openly and honestly sharing information, including feedback to other team representatives. For larger projects, involving a significant number of teams, multiple levels of these meetings may be convened. Each Scrum Team representative will provide updates from his/her team in turn. These updates are usually provided in the form of answers to four specific questions.

1. What has my team been working on since the last meeting?
2. What will my team do until the next meeting?
3. What were other teams counting on our team to finish that remains undone?
4. What is our team planning on doing that might affect other teams?

The answers to these four questions provide information that allows each team to clearly understand the work status of all other teams. It is recommended that a dedicated conference room be made available for the Scrum of Scrums Meeting, where all the Scrum Team Representatives are comfortable. In Convene Scrum of Scrums process, Scrum Guidance Body Expertise could relate to documented best practices about how to conduct Scrum of Scrum Meetings, and incorporate suggestions from such meetings in project work of individual Scrum Teams. There may also be a team of subject matter experts who may help the Chief Scrum Master facilitate the Scrum of Scrum Meeting. Some of the important outputs of the Scrum of Scrums meetings are: Coordination of work across multiple Scrum Teams. This is especially important when there are tasks involving inter-team dependencies.

Incompatibilities and discrepancies between the work and deliverables of different teams are quickly exposed. This forum also gives teams the opportunity to showcase their achievements and give feedback to other teams. By using Scrum of Scrums Meeting, there is collaboration across the organization as opposed to people working in closed teams concerned primarily with their individual responsibilities. The Scrum of Scrums Meeting is a forum where Scrum Team members have the opportunity to transparently discuss issues, impacting their project. The need to deliver every Sprint on time forces the teams to actively confront such issues early instead of postponing seeking resolution. This timely discussion and resolution of issues in the Scrum of Scrums Meeting greatly improve coordination between different Scrum Teams and also reduces the need for redesign and rework. Risks related to dependencies and delivery time tables are mitigated as well.

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Creating Content For Social Media

In social media channels, high quality content is the first priority, followed by content distribution. Companies worldwide invest large sums to create quality content, but in many cases, the content is not distributed properly. Audiences neither find nor share it. A good Content Creation and Distribution Plan for social media marketing will ensure that a company’s content is relevant, timely, and well written and that it reaches the target audience using the optimal means as determined by the digital marketing team.

One of the major debates regarding content creation is between content quality and quantity—how much content is enough and how good does it need to be?

Content creation should ideally start by defining a quantity goal and a publishing schedule with appropriate deadlines. Once the publishing schedule is finalized, focus should be on the quality for each piece of content being distributed.

Some of the different types of content that can be created for the various social media elements are as follows:

• Status updates—for professional and personal sharing websites
• Photos—for professional and personal sharing websites
• Videos—for audio-visual sharing, professional, and personal sharing websites
• Infographics—for blogs, discussion forums, and professional sharing websites
• Polls—for blogs, professional, and personal sharing websites
• Quizzes—for blogs, professional, and personal sharing websites
• Contests—for blogs, discussion forums, and professional sharing websites

It is also important to note that both the relevance of content and the relevance of type of content depend on the nature of the business. For example, quizzes are more relevant for companies in the education sector than for other industries such as manufacturing or airline.

In addition to good quality content, an effective social media plan must have a good distribution strategy. The content should be shared through the company’s own blog as well as other company pages on various social media sharing sites. Businesses must also ensure that there are ways for their target audiences to like, comment, and share the original content created by the company.

The following figure shows a sample of the structure of a Content Creation and Distribution Plan.

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Sprint Backlog in Scrum

What is a Sprint Backlog? Is it a baseline, a record or a report? Baseline is a project document, which, defines aspects of the project and, once approved, is subject to change control. It is used to measure project’s actual performance as against planned targets. A reord maintains information on the progress of the project. A report provides snapshots of the status of different aspects of a project at a given point of time or for a given duration.

To answer this question, we need to understand what a Sprint Backlog is, its purpose and composition. The Scrum Team creates the Sprint Backlog and Sprint Burndown Chart using the User Stories and the Effort Estimated Task List during Sprint Planning Meeting. During Sprint Planning Meeting, the User Stories, which are approved, estimated, and committed during the Approve, Estimate, and Commit User Stories process, are taken up for discussion by the Scrum Team. Each Scrum Team member also uses Effort Estimated Task List to select the tasks they plan to work on in the Sprint, based on their skills and experience. The list of the tasks to be executed by the Scrum Team in the upcoming Sprint is called the Sprint Backlog.

It is common practice in Scrum that the Sprint Backlog is represented on a Scrumboard or task board, which provides a constantly visible depiction of the status of the User Stories in the backlog. Also included in the Sprint Backlog are any risks associated with the various tasks. Any mitigating activities to address the identified risks would also be included as tasks in the Sprint Backlog. Once the Sprint Backlog is finalized and committed to by the Scrum Team, new user stories should not be added – however, tasks that might have been missed or overlooked from the committed user stories may need to be added. If new requirements arise during a Sprint, they will be added to the overall Prioritized Product Backlog and included in a future Sprint.

Another tool associated with the Sprint Backlog is the Sprint Burndown Chart. It is a graph that depicts the amount of work remaining in the ongoing Sprint. The initial Sprint Burndown Chart is accompanied by a planned burndown. The Sprint Burndown Chart should be updated at the end of each day as work is completed. This chart shows the progress that has been made by the Scrum Team and also allows for the detection of estimates that may have been incorrect. If the Sprint Burndown Chart shows that the Scrum Team is not on track to finish the tasks in the Sprint on time, the Scrum Master should identify any obstacles or impediments to successful completion, and try to remove them. A related chart is a Sprint Burnup Chart. Unlike the Sprint Burndown Chart which shows the amount of work remaining, the Sprint Burnup Chart depicts the work completed as part of the Sprint.

So, it is difficult to categorize the Sprint Backlog as a baseline, record or a report. And as Scrum professes minimum documentation, Sprint Backlog fulfills purposes of more than one project document. For more information on Scrum framework, you can read the Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK Guide). It can be downloaded for free in SCRUMstudy website: http://www.scrumstudy.com/download-free-buy-SBOK.asp

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Analyze Your Social Media Competitors

One of the simplest and most effective ways to begin developing a social media plan for a product, brand or company is to assess the social media activities that competitors are engaging in. By analyzing competitors’ social media activities, realistic benchmarks for the company’s social media plan can be set, based on what others in the industry are experiencing in terms of reach and engagement growth. This strategy enables the team to lay the framework for a successful social media strategy that is based on the successes of other similar companies in the same space.

A company identifies its competitors as a result of the Identify Competition process in the SMstudy book on Marketing Strategy. After identifying its competitors, the first step in analyzing competitors’ social media activity is to identify their voice in social media websites—whether the competitor is portraying itself directly as the brand or whether individuals from the brand are promoting the product.

The next step is to identify the level and scale of engagement of competitors with their audience. Questions like “How many followers does a company have on LinkedIn?”, “What is the ratio of followers to following on Twitter?”, and “How many Likes does the company have on its Facebook page?” are all questions that can be easily researched and answered.

It is also important to know how often competitors engage in specific activities that indicate their focus on various social media elements. Questions like “How many Facebook posts do they write each month?” and “How many tweets to they write each day?” need to be answered to gauge their focus. Some brands may have an extremely high frequency of activities but their level of engagement in an activity may be very small. Others might focus more on quality content, and participate in less frequent activities but may see an equal or higher level of engagement. For example, if a competitor makes thirty Facebook posts but each post is seen by just twenty people, out of whom three “like” it and two share it, this is not a good strategy and doing something similar is not likely to yield better results with the same target audience.

Insights into preferences for different types of content can also be discovered by analyzing competitors’ social media activity. Companies can observe whether competitors are posting texts, links, videos, photos, polls, questions, trivia, or something completely different, and can see the types of posts that engage the most number of customers.

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How is Quality related to Scope and Business Value?

In Scrum, quality is defined as the ability of the completed product or deliverables to meet the Acceptance Criteria and achieve the business value expected by the customer. To ensure that a project meets quality requirements, Scrum adopts an approach of continuous improvement whereby the team learns from experience and stakeholder engagement to constantly keep the Prioritized Product Backlog updated with any changes in requirements. The Prioritized Product Backlog is simply never complete until the closure or termination of the project. Any changes to the requirements reflect changes in the internal and external business environment and allow the team to continually work and adapt to achieve those requirements.

The fact that Scrum, through repetitive testing, requires work to be Done in an incremental fashion through Sprints rather than waiting until the end to produce deliverables results in errors being fixed right away, rather than postponed. Moreover, important quality-related tasks (e.g., development, testing, and documentation) are completed as part of the same Sprint by the same team—this ensures that quality is inherent in any Done deliverable created as part of a Sprint. Thus, continuous improvement with repetitive testing optimizes the probability of achieving the expected quality levels in a Scrum project. Constant discussions between the Scrum Core Team and stakeholders (including customers and users) with actual increments of the product being delivered at the end of every Sprint, ensures that the gap between customer expectations from the project and actual deliverables produced is constantly reduced.

Quality and Scope

Scope and quality requirements for a project are determined by taking into consideration various factors such as the following:

• The business need the project will fulfill
• The capability and willingness of the organization to meet the identified business need
• The current and future needs of the target audience

Scope of the project is the sum total of all the product increments and the work required for developing the final product. Quality is the ability of the deliverables to meet the quality requirements for the product and satisfy customer needs. In Scrum, the scope and quality of the project are captured in the Prioritized Product Backlog and the scope for each Sprint is determined by refining the large Prioritized Product Backlog Items (PBIs) into a set of small but detailed User Stories that can be planned, developed, and verified within a Sprint.

The Prioritized Product Backlog is continuously groomed by the Product Owner. The Product Owner ensures that any User Stories that the Scrum Team is expected to do in a Sprint are refined prior to the start of the Sprint. In general, the most valuable requirements in solving the customers’ problems or meeting their needs are prioritized as high and the remaining are given a lower priority. Less important User Stories are developed in subsequent Sprints or can be left out altogether according to the customer’s requirements. During Sprint execution, the Product Owner, customer, and the Scrum Team can discuss the list of features of the product to comply with the changing needs of the customers.

Quality and Business Value

Quality and business value are closely linked. Therefore, it is critical to understand the quality and scope of a project in order to correctly map the outcomes and benefits the project and its product must achieve in order to deliver business value. To determine the business value of a product, it is important to understand the business need that drives the requirements of the product. Thus, business need determines the product required, and the product, in turn provide the expected business value.

Quality is a complex variable. An increase in scope without increasing time or resources tends to reduce quality. Similarly, a reduction in time or resources without decreasing scope also generally results in a decrease in quality. Scrum believes in maintaining a ʺsustainable paceʺ of work, which helps improve quality over a period of time.

The Scrum Guidance Body may define minimum quality requirements and standards required for all projects in the organization. The standards must be adhered to by all Scrum Teams in the company.

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Mobile Site and App Analytics

Web analytics can be used to analyze visitor behavior on mobile websites and help to determine the most effective elements of the website for meeting the needs and preferences of mobile audiences. Web analytics also enables a company to assess the effectiveness of specific mobile marketing campaigns and channels, including mobile advertising, mobile search marketing, and traditional desktop channels, and identify those that appeal to the target audience and work best for the business.

As previously mentioned, consumers are increasingly using mobile devices to consume data online and to make purchases. As a result, mobile devices have become an important advertising medium for companies globally. In order to measure the effectiveness of mobile media, companies constantly collect data about consumer activities on company sites and apps. As part of the data collection process, companies typically segment users based on the type of device used, and then analyze appropriate metrics for users of mobile devices. Some relevant metrics include average number of pages viewed by users, number of daily unique visits to the site, demographic profile of users of the site, geographic distribution of users, and average revenue generated per visit.

The data pertaining to consumer activity on mobile sites can also be compared against the corresponding data on the company’s desktop website to measure the relative effectiveness of both channels. Such data can help companies determine how much to invest in each channel.

Another element to consider is that not all mobile devices are the same. The digital marketing team may need to use device detection to identify the most commonly used devices and their features, and align the company’s app development and digital marketing strategies in order to target the most relevant audience. It is important for marketers to keep track of new device launches (e.g., wearables) and other emerging technology and adapt in order to stay ahead of the competition. One of the issues that the team performing mobile analytics faces is ensuring appropriate tracking of the location of their audience since the audience will generally use multiple mobile devices and may frequently change locations. Knowledge about the location of the audience is especially critical in cases where the business offers location-based services or location-based advertising.

The digital marketing team may also be required to choose an analytics solution that tracks customers across multiple channels—websites, mobile sites, apps, devices, social channels—using a unique ID to ensure that customers can, for example, resume the process of purchasing a product, even when the process has been started on another channel. This tracking can help companies create a well-rounded profile of target customers and allows companies to deliver customized content for users across channels.

Here are two examples of Mobile Site and App Analytics:

• One of Britain’s largest hotel chains launched a mobile app in January 2011, earning revenue of £1M within three months. Sales conversion rates increased from three percent to six percent and the hotel claimed to have received seventy-seven percent of the room bookings at that time through smartphones. The hotel chain effectively used mobile analytics to improve the features and functionalities of its mobile app. It found a pattern that customers usually booked a room in the nearest possible hotel and most of their bookings were for one night. This insight from mobile analytics helped the hotel chain to adapt according to the changing consumer pattern. Usability and design also surfaced as the most important traits in the mobile app and seemed to affect the way in which users interacted with the app.
• An American rental lodging marketplace engaged an analytics firm to evaluate user behavior associated with its iPhone app. The firm used mobile analytics to measure the time users spent at different places in the app, their most frequent actions, and the percentage of users who passively browsed versus actively managed a booking. It also optimized its first-time listing and booking flows. It used event tracking and funnel analysis to keep track of user behavior. Based on the data found using analytics, the company revamped the host listing process on its app, resulting in a 400 percent increase in the conversion rate.

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Increase the reach of website using Search Engine Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or paid search advertising involves a company paying to have its ad appear on search results pages of search engines. PPC advertising providers such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing show sponsored ads, or paid search results, for most search queries. A consumer intending to purchase a microwave oven for her new modular kitchen may enter a query “microwave oven with convection and grill for home use,” seeking cost and feature information. A chain of electric kitchen appliances would likely then appear as a sponsored result. It is often observed that users with a high intention of making a purchase click on sponsored ads. This is especially true of highly transactional goods such as clothing, electronics, and consumer foods. 

PPC advertising has a significant impact on consumer metrics such as brand awareness and brand image, even among users who do not click on the sponsored advertisements. Image ads tend to be more effective in exerting positive impact and increasing visibility in search results. A consumer seeking a new microwave oven may choose to review multiple electric kitchen appliances advice pages before making a decision.

A business can increase the reach of its website using PPC advertising in the following ways:

Choosing relevant Keywords–keywords are the search terms used by consumers to tell search engines about the specific product or service they are interested in purchasing. For businesses looking for maximizing their reach using PPC or search engine advertising, the focus must be on bidding on keywords that are highly relevant to the search queries that are common in their business. Businesses can make use of their historical data and competitor data to determine the popularity and relevance of various keywords.

The price of keywords can vary greatly, from pennies to several dollars depending on popularity, demand, and the value to the advertiser. The ad’s “quality score”, rank and popularity of the keywords among the competitors determine the price an advertiser has to pay. The quality score is the search engine’s way of determining the relevance of an ad to the searcher by evaluating each keyword’s relevance to the business and its landing page, as well as other factors. The rank of an ad is determined based on its cost-per-click (CPC) and its quality score.

Choosing relevant Geography and Time–search engines have enabled business to analyze their past data to determine where their online customers are located and the best time to reach them. Based on this data and other internal research, businesses can choose the desired geography and time of day in which they should advertise their products and services for optimal results. For small businesses that cater to a local audience, geography-based targeting is especially important and helps ensure that their ads remain relevant.

Profiling the audience–Businesses must understand the profile of their target audience and create “user personas” that will help them identify the relevant ads for their customer base. A young age group may be attracted to video ads, while a more mature audience may prefer an image ad. Audience profiling may also help businesses identify the time of day when their target audience is most likely to make a purchase.

Selecting appropriate Ad sizes–Advertisements displayed on search engines and other third-party sites are available in different sizes, and the digital marketing team must customize their marketing content to the size of the ad being displayed.

Testing various Ads– Search engines allow businesses to experiment with two or more ad options in order to identify the more attractive one, commonly referred to as A/B or multivariate testing. A business can divide its marketing budget between two or more ads to be displayed to a similar audience throughout the day if it is unsure about the most effective advertising message for its products or services.

Customizing Language–businesses can also customize their ads based on the language preference of their target audience to make sure the intended marketing message is relevant and reaches audiences around the world.

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All About Agile Testing

Coding and testing stages are not isolated ones but well integrated ones in Agile development. The development toward every user story commences through written business-interfacing experiments that enables the team the ‘what part’ regarding coding and also the juncture when the tasks are being completed with.

Professionals in the field of testing, analysis and development interface with stakeholders from the business side for extracting instances of preferred and unwanted manners for every single user story and aspect, and then transforming them into tests which are executable. This is known as Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD) or Specification by Example. The team which is responsible for development will then work in partnership with their customers to choose the specific user story aligning customer expectations apropos the delivery part. User stories will be corroborated upon cracking the different functional, automated functional and manual probing tests.

Time is an important element which should be made inclusive for the whole activities related with testing toward user story estimates. This can include automated testing and manual probing testing. Inexperienced Scrum teams frequently and habitually over promise or goes overboard with their commitment part in terms of extra work planning compared to what they could feasibly do. Testing then gets hard-pressed in the end in the absence of features, due to this undesirable characteristic of the team simply because of the arrival of sprint on the last day. The result – mass demise of user stories hauled from one iteration to the subsequent one without the testing professionals being able to conduct their tests.

Focusing on completing each story at a specified time is a good way to handle this problem.

Necessary role inclusion for comprehending the various customer requirements and delivering good quality oriented software is a benefit that Agile teams possess inherently. Agile teams find the much needed opportunity through their varied experiences and assortment of abilities which help them in traversing different approaches toward supporting business participants in outlining their requirements. They are able to do it through tangible examples provided to the stakeholders and then interpreting the same into experiments certifying the ‘done part’ aimed at every user story along with their features.

Customers are pleased with the outcome pertaining to as an effort of the team – interacting and coordinating with the business teams, taking out the much needed time to plan for evidencing the aspects are done with as per requirements outlined. Newer Agile teams must pool in time to search for different means to comprehend the requisites of customers so that they can interpret those requisites into well conducted experiments which will outline software development. That will bring in maturity in terms of experience and doing things in a speedy manner efficiently and effectively.

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What is Planning Poker?

Planning poker is combination of analogy, expert opinion, and disaggregation in a fun way so that it will result quick and reliable estimates. All the team members are included in planning poker. On any agile project, you will have typically ten team members or less. If it does, the team can be split in twos. Then estimation is done independently by each team. The PO participates in planning poker but he or she doesn’t estimate.

At the beginning, each team member is handed deck of cards. All the cards are marked with a valid estimation number. Each member will be given a deck that reads a number series. The most popular of these estimation numbers are Fibonacci numbers. (1,2,3,5 ,8,13,2, 34,55 and so on). The cards are prepared before the planning poker meeting.

Then a moderator describes each of the user stories or theme that team is planning to estimate. Though generally the product owner acts as a Moderator, anyone can be a moderator. No special privilege or role is associated with the moderator. The product owner will answer all questions that the team members have.

The goal of estimation is to be somewhere on the left of the actual effort line. Important thing to remember is that this process is not about deriving an estimate that will resist all future inspection.

After all the queries are resolved, each team member selects a card that represents their estimation. Each estimator has to make a selection before Cards can be visible to everyone. Cards are kept private until everyone has estimated. Then the cards are turned over at the same time.

Then, all cards are instantaneously spun over and displayed so that all estimators can see each estimate. Chances are that these estimates will differ significantly. In that case, the high and low estimators will explain their estimates. The focus of this process is not to attack these estimators but to learn on what basis these estimations were assigned.

After this discussion, each team member will re-estimate by selecting a card. The earlier mentioned process will be followed again. Chances are that the estimates will meet by the subsequent round. Continue to repeat the process until all the estimators converge on a single estimate that can be used for the story. Very rarely it takes more than three rounds. Continue this process until estimates are moving closer together and they everyone converges on a single estimate.

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Importance of SCRUM for HR

The Scrum Book of Knowledge defines Scrum as an adaptive, iterative, fast and flexible methodology designed to quickly deliver significant value during a project. Scrum ensures transparency in communication and creates an environment of collective accountability and continuous progress. Interestingly, applying Scrum successfully in a project also requires the human resource management practices of the organization where it is being implemented, to be in sync with Scrum.

In Scrum, there are two types of roles:

Core Roles: They are involved in creating the product of the project, are committed to the project, and ultimately are responsible for the success of the project.

Non-core Roles: They are non-compulsory team members, who have an interest in the project, may interface with the team, but may not be responsible for the overall success of the project. The non-core roles should also be taken into account in any Scrum project.

Typically, most organizations find it hard to discard Taylor’s scientific management theory. But to make Scrum teams work successfully, the HR has to give the cross-functional team a sense of responsibility and the control. After all, Scrum teams are expected to be self-motivated. They collaborate extensively to build products according to User Stories (users’ requirements), may a time negotiating with the Product Owner who is ultimately responsible for the Scrum team’s business decisions. Whilst executing a typical sprint, team members develop a sense of co-ownership as they set shared goals and learn how to manage each other in order to achieve them. But self-organizations of Scrum teams may be questioned when the team members are effected by performance appraisals, trying to impress managers, incentive schemes. This serves as a roadblock to Scrum’s core reasons of success: product-requirement alignment, feedback, self-motivation and morale. Along with the Scrum Master, it is also the HR’s job to help the Scrum team members to achieve their aims.

Another area where the HR’s role is important is during the appointment of the Scrum Master. The Scrum Master is the servant leader of the Scrum Team. He moderates and facilitates their interactions. He is responsible for solving their problems and ensuring the Scrum Team has a productive environment to work in. He guards the Scrum team from external influences and enforces Scrum processes. He also acts as the Scrum Team’s coach and motivator. Hence, it is important to find the right candidate for the job. One of the most common mistakes an HR makes when helping select the Scrum Master is that he ends up assuming that a manager is the default choice for the Scrum Master. Managers usually work in a boss-subordinate leadership style rather than being a servant leader. So when a manager is appointed as a Scrum Master for a team that includes his subordinates, they continue to regard the Scrum Master as a manager rather than managing the Scrum Team between themselves.

The Product Owner, on the other hand, requires a certain level of authority associated with his role. As Product Owners, the managers tend to get better results for each sprint out of their subordinates.

Effective Scrum requires longstanding, cross-functional teams. Progressive HR policies will allow Scrum teams to handpick their own members within these restrictions.

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Essential Characteristics of SCRUM Team

In a Scrum project, it is the Scrum Team members who are responsible for delivering the desired product or service and not the Scrum. Hence, we should be careful in forming the Scrum Teams.

“The Scrum Team is sometimes referred to as Development Team since they are responsible for developing the product, service or other results. It consists of a group of individuals who the user stories in the Sprint Backlog to create deliverables for the project”. – SBOK 2013 Edition.

The essential characteristics of a Scrum Team for delivering the desired project results are described below:

Self-Organized: The scrum team members are motivated individuals who do not wait for their superiors to assign the tasks. They take the responsibility, share the risk, take decision, and work collectively towards a common goal.

Empowered: The Scrum Team or the development team is supplied with the required resources to deliver the desired products or services along with the authority to take the decisions. If the team has only the responsibility but no authority to take decisions, the continuous/iterative development is difficult.

Collaboration: Project management is a shared value creation process with teams working and interacting together to deliver greatest value. The scrum team should share the knowledge, ideas, risk and responsibilities, and work in harmony with the team members to deliver desired results.

Shared Goal: The individuals within the team should work collectively towards a common goal. The team goal should superimpose their individual goals like growth, appraisal, and money.    

Optimum Size: A small Scrum team may not have the required skill to develop the product or service and a large Scrum team may spoil the work as the collaboration within the team will be difficult. As defined in the SBOK, the optimum size of the Scrum team should be six to ten. This will ensure that, the Scrum team is large enough to possess necessary skills to deliver the project and small enough to collaborate.

Diverse Skills: The Scrum Team should collectively possess the necessary skills to deliver the project deliverables. During scrum team formation the team members should be selected keeping in mind the skills required to deliver the project deliverables.

Collocated: It is advised to form a Scrum team with the members collocated. This ensures collaboration and coordination within the team members.

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All about Time-boxing in SCRUM

Scrum treats time as one of the most important constraints in managing a project. To address the constraint of time, Scrum introduces a concept called ‘Time-boxing’ which proposes fixing a certain amount of time for each process and activity in a Scrum project. This ensures that Scrum Team members do not take up too much or too little work for a particular period of time and do not expend their time and energy on work for which they have little clarity.

Some of the advantages of Time-boxing are as follows:

• Efficient development process
• Less overheads
• High velocity for teams

Time-boxing can be utilized in many Scrum processes, for example, in the Conduct Daily Standup process, the duration of the Daily Standup Meeting is Time-boxed. At times, Time-boxing may be used to avoid excessive improvement of an item (i.e., gold-plating).

Time-boxing is a critical practice in Scrum and should be applied with care. Arbitrary Time-boxing can lead to de-motivation of the team and may have the consequence of creating an apprehensive environment, so it should be used appropriately.

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All about Agile Methodologies

The term “agile” generally refers to being able to move or respond quickly and easily; being nimble. In any kind of management discipline, agile as a quality should therefore be a good thing to aim for. Agile project management specifically, involves being adaptive during the creation of a product, service, or other result.

A number of Agile methodologies originated and gained traction in the 1990’s and the early 2000’s. Here are the various popular Agile methodologies being used.

Lean Kanban: Lean concept optimizes an organization’s system to produce valuable results based on its resources, needs, and alternatives while reducing waste. Kanban literally means a “signboard” or “billboard” and it espouses the use of visual aids to assist and track production.

Extreme Programming (XP): Originated in Chrysler Corporation, gained traction in the 1990′s. XP makes it possible to keep the cost of changing software from rising radically with time. The key attributes of XP include incremental development, flexible scheduling, automated test codes, verbal communication, ever-evolving design, close collaboration, and tying in the long- and short-term drives of all those involved.

Crystal Methods: Introduced by Alistair Cockburn in the early 1990s, Crystal methods have four roles—executive sponsor, lead designer, developers, and experienced users. Crystal Methods recommend various strategies and techniques to achieve agility.

Dynamic Systems Development Methods (DSMD): This framework was initially published in 1995 and is administered by the DSDM Consortium. DSDM sets quality and effort in terms of cost and time at the outset and adjusts the project deliverables to meet set criteria by prioritizing the deliverables into “Must have,” “Should have,” “Could have,” and “Won’t have” categories

Feature Driven Development (FDD): Introduced by Jeff De Luca in 1997 and operates on the principle of completing a project by breaking it down into small, client-valued functions that can be delivered in less than two weeks’ time. FDD has two core principles—software development is a human activity and software development is a client-valued functionality.

Test Driven Development (TDD): Also known as Test-First Development, and was introduced by Kent Beck, one of the creators of Extreme Programming (XP). It is a software development method that involves writing automated test code first and developing the least amount of code necessary to pass that test later.

Adaptive Software Development (ASD): This method grew out of the rapid application development work by Jim Highsmith and Sam Bayer. The highlights of ASD are constant adaptation of processes to the work at hand, provision of solutions to problems surfacing in large projects, and iterative, incremental development with continuous prototyping.

Agile Unified Process (AUP): Evolved from IBM’s Rational Unified Process and developed by Scott Ambler, AUP combines industry-tried-and-tested Agile techniques such as Test Driven Development (TDD), Agile Modeling, agile change management, and database refactoring, to deliver a working product of the best quality.

Domain-Driven Design (DDD): This approach was meant for handling complex designs with implementation linked to an evolving model. It was conceptualized by Eric Evans in 2004 and revolves around the design of a core domain.

All these methods of Agile differ from each other in a variety of aspects but their commonality stems from their adherence to The Agile Manifesto.

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Conflict Management and SCRUM

Organizations applying the Scrum framework encourage an open environment and dialogue among employees. Conflicts among Scrum Team members are generally resolved independently, with little or no involvement from management or others outside the Scrum Team.

 Conflict can be healthy when it promotes team discussions and encourages debates, as this usually results in benefits for the project and the respective team members. It is therefore important that the resolution of conflicts be encouraged, promoting an open environment where team members feel welcome to express their opinions and concerns with each other and about the project, and ultimately agree on what is to be delivered and how the work in each Sprint will be performed.
Usually there are four approaches to managing conflict in an organization applying Scrum processes:

Win-Win

It is usually best for team members to face problems directly with a cooperative attitude and an open dialogue to work through any disagreements to reach consensus. This approach is called Win-Win. Organizations implementing Scrum should promote an environment where employees feel comfortable to openly discuss and confront problems or issues and work through them to reach Win-Win outcomes.

Lose-Win

Some team members may at times feel that their contributions are not being recognized or valued by others, or that they are not being treated equally. This may lead them to withdraw from contributing effectively to the project and agree to whatever they are being told to do, even if they are in disagreement. This approach is called Lose-Win. This situation may happen if there are members in the team (including managers) who use an authoritative or directive style of issuing orders and/or do not treat all team members equally. This approach is not a desired conflict management technique for Scrum projects, since active contribution of every member of the team is mandatory for successful completion of each Sprint. The Scrum Master should encourage the involvement of any team members who appear to be withdrawing from conflict situations. For example, it is important for all team members to speak and contribute at each Daily Standup Meeting so that any issues or impediments can be made known and managed effectively.

Lose-Lose

In conflict situations, team members may attempt to bargain or search for solutions that bring only a partial degree or temporary measure of satisfaction to the parties in a dispute. This situation could happen in Scrum Teams where team members try to negotiate for suboptimal solutions to a problem. This approach typically involves some “give and take” to satisfy every team member—instead of trying to solve the actual problem. This generally results in an overall Lose-Lose outcome for the individuals involved and consequently the project. The Scrum Team should be careful to ensure that team members do not get into a Lose-Lose mentality. Scrum Daily Standup and other Scrum meetings are conducted to ensure that actual problems get solved through mutual discussions.

Win-Lose

At times, a Scrum Master or another influential team member may believe he or she is a de facto leader or manager and try to exert their viewpoint at the expense of the viewpoints of others. This conflict management technique is often characterized by competitiveness and typically results in a Win-Lose outcome. This approach is not recommended when working on Scrum projects, because Scrum Teams are by nature self-organized and empowered, with no one person having true authority over another team member. Although the Scrum Team may include persons with different levels of experience and expertise, every member is treated equally and no person has the authority to be the primary decision maker.
Conflict management techniques are used by team members to manage any conflicts that arise during a Scrum project. Sources of conflict evolve primarily due to schedules, priorities, resources, reporting hierarchy, technical issues, procedures, personality, and costs.

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Scaling SCRUM for Enterprises

Scaling Scrum for the Enterprise is usually applicable to the following:

• Portfolios, programs, and/or projects in any industry
• Products, services, or any other results to be delivered to stakeholders
• Projects of any size or complexity

The term “product” may refer to a product, service, or other deliverable. Scrum can be applied effectively to any project in any industry—from small projects or teams with as few as six team members to large, complex projects with up to several hundred team members.

For Scaling Scrum for Enterprise, the following processes need to be followed:

Create Program or Portfolio Components—In this process, the Program or Portfolio Product Owner and key stakeholders identify common components and resources required for the program or portfolio. The Minimum Done Criteria are defined and all stakeholders are identified.

Review and Update Scrum Guidance Body—In this process, the Scrum Guidance Body recommendations are regularly reviewed by the members of the Scrum Guidance Body and are updated when and if necessary. In this process, changes in the membership of the Scrum Guidance Body are also handled.

Create and Groom Program or Portfolio Backlog—In this process, the Program or Portfolio Backlog is created, updated, and maintained. Recommendations for improvements of the Scrum Guidance Body Recommendations may be made and implementation deadlines may be adjusted based on changed requirements and/or progress of the projects in the program or portfolio.

Coordinate Program or Portfolio Components—In this process, components of the program or portfolio are coordinated. Dependencies between projects are addressed, common impediments are discussed, and best practices are shared. Sometimes, recommendations for improvements of the Scrum Guidance Body are made.

Retrospect Program or Portfolio Releases—In this process, the Program or Portfolio Product Owner and key stakeholders get together to retrospect a program or portfolio Release and internalize the lessons learned. Often, these lessons learned lead to agreed actionable improvements to be implemented in future. releases. Sometimes, improvements to the Scrum Guidance Body may be recommended.

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How Program Product Backlog Works?

The Program Product Owner develops the Program Product Backlog which contains a prioritized list of high level business and project requirements preferably written in the form of large Program Backlog Items. These are later refined by the Product Owners of individual projects as they create and prioritize Product Backlogs for their projects. These Prioritized Product Backlogs have much smaller but detailed User Stories that can be approved, estimated, and committed by individual Scrum Teams.

The Program Product Backlog is continuously groomed by the Program Product Owner to ensure that new business requirements are added and existing requirements are properly documented and prioritized. This ensures that the most valuable requirements in meeting the program’s objectives are prioritized as high and the remaining are given a lower priority.

The Program Product Backlog created for the program presents a larger picture of all projects that are part of the program. Therefore, it can provide significant guidance regarding project goals, scope, objectives, and the expected business benefits.

Similar to the Project Product Backlog, the Program Product Backlog may also undergo periodic grooming to incorporate changes and new requirements. Changes to the Program Product Backlog can result from changes in either external or internal conditions. External conditions might include changing business scenarios, technology trends, or legal compliance requirements. Internal factors affecting the Program Product Backlog could be related to modifications in organizational strategy or policies, Identified Risks and other factors. Changes in requirements in the Program Product Backlog often impact the Project Product Backlogs of underlying projects, so they should be taken into account during the Groom Prioritized Product Backlog process.

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Role of a Chief Scrum Master

Large projects require multiple Scrum Teams to work in parallel. Information gathered from one team may need to be appropriately communicated to other teams—the Chief Scrum Master is responsible for this activity.

The role of a Chief Scrum Master is necessary to ensure proper collaboration among the Scrum Teams. Coordination across various Scrum Teams working on a project is typically done through the Scrum of Scrums (SoS) Meeting. There is no hierarchy between the Scrum Masters: they are all peers. The Chief Scrum Master just works on a multi-team level, whereas the Scrum Masters work on a single team level.

Large projects require multiple Scrum Teams to work in parallel. Information gathered from one team may need to be appropriately communicated to other teams. The Chief Scrum Master is responsible for this activity.

Coordination across various Scrum Teams working on a project is typically done through the Scrum of Scrums (SoS) Meeting. This is analogous to the Daily Standup Meeting and is facilitated by the Chief Scrum Master. The Chief Scrum Master is typically the individual responsible for addressing impediments that impact more than one Scrum Team.

Typically, any inter-team issues are addressed by the interested parties in a session immediately following the Scrum of Scrums Meeting. The Chief Scrum Master facilitates this session.

The Chief Scrum Master can be chosen from the Scrum Masters of the large project or can be somebody else. For very large projects, it is recommended to have a Chief Scrum Master who is not also a Scrum Master because the effort required for the Chief Scrum Master role will prevent the Chief Scrum Master from also being able to dedicate enough time to the work with his/her Scrum Team. In either case, the Chief Scrum Master should have enough Scrum expertise to be able to foster collaboration and to help and coach others with the implementation of Scrum for a smooth delivery of the project’s products.

Apart from clearing impediments and ensuring a conducive project environment for the Scrum Teams, the Chief Scrum Master also collaborates with the Chief Product Owner, other Scrum Masters, and Product Owners in activities such as developing the list of components and resources needed in common for all teams throughout the project. He/she facilitates everything that goes beyond the realm of a single Scrum Team.

The Chief Scrum Master also interfaces with the Program Scrum Master to ensure alignment of the large project with the goals and objectives of the program.

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Confirming Benefits in Scrum

Throughout a project, it is important to verify whether benefits are being realized. Whether the products of a Scrum project are tangible or intangible, appropriate benefit realization planning and verification techniques are required to confirm that the project deliverables with benefits and value are being created by the Scrum team members. So a well-structured benefit realization plan helps the teams map benefits of individual projects to the overall programme and corporate strategic objectives. This also helps in tracking the identified benefits even after completion of Scrum project and handover of deliverables

At the beginning of the project, all the project outputs, outcomes and benefits expected by the user groups and other key stakeholders should be identified and documented. And a means of measuring benefits, key responsibilities and accountabilities associated with benefits, time of benefit realization, etc. should also be agreed. At pre-determined intervals, the team should review the benefit realization plan to assess the status of expected benefits and to incorporate any changes in the forecast of realization of benefits.

Now, let’s look at some of the ways of confirming benefits. Some useful techniques are use of prototypes, simulations, workshops, demonstrations etc. Demonstrating prototypes to customers and simulating their functionalities are commonly used techniques for confirming value. Often, after using the features or having them demonstrated, customers can more clearly determine whether the features are adequate and suitable for their needs. They might realize a need for additional features, or may decide to modify previously defined feature requirements. In product development, this customer experience has come to be known as IKIWISI (I’ll Know It When I See It).

Through demonstrations or access to early iterations, customers can also evaluate to what degree the team has successfully interpreted their requirements and met their expectations.

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What is Scrum Initiate Phase?

A Scrum project often goes through a number of phases. Five phases, composed of nineteen processes, are suggested in A Guide to the Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK™). Regardless of the Scrum project, it needs to start somewhere—this is known as the Initiate phase.

The Initiate phase includes six processes that address the specific activities and flow of a Scrum project. It is important to note that the processes are not necessarily performed sequentially or separately. At times, it may be more appropriate to combine some processes, depending on the specific requirements of each project.

Create Project Vision

The Project Business Case is reviewed to create a Project Vision Statement that will serve as the inspiration and provide focus for the entire project. A good project vision should focus on the problem rather than the solution. The Project Vision Statement should not be too specific and should leave room for flexibility. The Product Owner is the person responsible for achieving maximum business value for the project and represents the Voice of the Customer in the Create Project Vision process.

Identify Scrum Master and Stakeholder(s)

The Scrum Master and Stakeholders are identified using specific Selection Criteria. A Scrum Master is a facilitator and “servant leader” who ensures that the Scrum Team works in an environment conducive to completing the project successfully. Stakeholders—customers, users, sponsors—frequently interface with the Scrum Core Team and influence the project throughout the product development process.

Form Scrum Team

Scrum Team members are identified. Normally, the Product Owner has the primary responsibility of selecting team members but often does so in collaboration with the Scrum Master. The Scrum Team is a group of people who are responsible for understanding the business requirements specified by the Product Owner, estimating User Stories and creating the project deliverables. The team decides on the amount of work to commit to in a Sprint and determines the best way to perform the work.

Develop Epic(s)

The Project Vision Statement serves as the basis for developing Epics—large, unrefined User Stories in the Prioritized Product Backlog. User Group Meetings may be held to discuss appropriate Epics. Epics are written in the initial stages of the project when most User Stories are high-level functionalities and product descriptions and requirements are broadly defined. Once these Epics come up in the Prioritized Product Backlog for completion in an upcoming Sprint, they are broken down into smaller, more granular User Stories. These smaller User Stories are generally simple, short and easy to implement functionalities or blocks of tasks that can be completed in a Sprint.

Create Prioritized Product Backlog

Epics are refined, elaborated and then prioritized to create a Prioritized Product Backlog for the project. The Product Owner develops a Prioritized Product Backlog, which contains a prioritized list of business and project requirements written in the form of Epics. The Prioritized Product Backlog is based on three primary factors: value, risk or uncertainty and dependencies. The Done Criteria—a set of rules that are applicable to all User Stories—is also established in this process. A clear definition of Done removes ambiguity from requirements and helps the team adhere to mandatory quality norms. A User Story is considered Done when it is approved by the Product Owner who judges it on the basis of the Done Criteria and individual User Story Acceptance Criteria.

Conduct Release Planning

The Scrum Core Team reviews the User Stories in the Prioritized Product Backlog to develop a Release Planning Schedule, which is essentially a phased deployment schedule that can be shared with the project stakeholders. The Product Owner and the Scrum Team decide on the Length of Sprint for the project, which often remains the same throughout the project. However, it may change if the Product Owner and Scrum Team decide that it is necessary or appropriate.

Following the six processes of the Initiate phase will lay a solid groundwork for any Scrum project. Remember that the processes do not need to be performed sequentially or separately. They can be adjusted to complement the specific requirements of each project. Before leaving the Initiative phase, however, it is imperative to create a good project vision and establish the various Scrum roles.

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