Project Manager Fundamentals

The Project Manager (ScrumMaster/ Development Manager) is responsible for:

• Safeguarding the Scrum process,
• Removing any obstacles,
• Facilitating collaboration within the team, and
• Acting as a sheepdog for the team.

Understanding Rally Terminology - Basic overview of Project, Release, Iteration, User Story, Defect, Test Case, and Task.

Release Planning – The Product Owner should come prepared to the Release Planning meeting with a prioritized list of User Stories.  The team performs gross level estimating on any User Story that does not have an estimate.  The team then agrees on the number of Iterations, the length of the Iterations and the approximate scope of the Iterations.  The team then arranges the User Stories into Iterations based on priority.

Iteration Planning – During the Iteration Planning meeting, the team breaks down as many User Stories as possible into Tasks.  The team will need to create estimates for each Task and typically Tasks should take ½ a day to 2 days.  A User Story is not “done” in the Iteration until it is completed tested and accepted by the Product Owner.
Here are some characteristics of the Iteration:

• Duration of Iterations can range from 2 to 4 weeks,
• Highest priority User Stories are implemented,
• Team commits to the work they can complete during the Iteration during the Iteration planning meeting,
• User Stories are designed coded, and tested during the Iteration,
• Priorities and team makeup can only change between Iterations, and
• Scope of the Iteration is fixed.

Committing to a Release or Iteration – Once the team has committed to the Release or Iteration, you can set the Release or Iteration to a status of 'Committed'.  The entire team needs to commit to the Release or Iteration.  This is necessary as the burns down charts in Rally are generated based on these settings.

Tracking Progress – You can track the progress of your development using the Release and Iteration Status screens and Rally Charting. The dashboards give clear visibility into the health of the Iteration or Release.  The burn down and cumulative flow charts provide visual representation of your progress.

Iteration/Release Review - In the review sessions you demonstrate the successfully competed work, review key metrics and objectively assess the results of the development cycle. You can use the status screens to identify the completed work and the Release Metrics screen to gather these key metrics.