Appling Scrum to OrganizeUniversity Degrees Coursework

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerzaand N.N.Sánchez

8th annual International Conference on Education and New LearningTechnologies - EDULEARN16 - Barcelona (Spain)

4th - 6th of July, 2016

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

IntroductionI Agile frameworks in software development

http://www.agilemanifesto.org/I Scrum: Relatively small subset of agile practices

http://www.scrumguides.org/I Initially defined by Jeff Sutherland and KenSchwaber and continuously evolving

I Application to Software Quality course (doesnot include explicitly agile topics)

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Scrum Framework

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Scrum Framework conceptsI Roadmap and ReleasesI Product Backlog and User StoriesI Sprints and Minimum Viable Products

I Sprint planningI Sprint backlogI Sprint Review (product)I Sprint Retrospective (team)

I Daily meetings

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Scrum in the ClassroomI Applied to practical work realisation, rather thanSoftware development

I Multifunctional teams with a maximum of tenmembers

I Focused on the main artifact: SprintsI First week: basic backgroundI Roadmap and product backlog based on thework assignments

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Sprints in the Classroom

I Sprints of approximately three weeksI Four Sprints by semesterI Before starting, the objective of the first Sprintis fixed.

I Each Sprint has a goal, e.g., “Learn techniquesfor evaluating software”.

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Sprint Planning

I First day of practical workI User Stories involved in the SprintI Remark concepts:I Waterfall approach versus cycle of agile lifeI Closed requirements versus user storiesI Immobilism versus adaptability and response

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Sprint BacklogI Work objectives mapped to user storiesI Examples (Computer Science): “automatedtesting x Calabash”, “Install Jenkins”

I Examples (Social Sciences): “find the mostimportant writers of XIX century”.

I Assign values to user stories (totalling 10)I The sum of the user stories fulfilled is the markof the team

I Thus, they learn the importance of prioritisingI The teacher can propose related techniques(post-it notes, Trello, etc.)

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Daily Meetings

I Dailys are a recommendationI Not always given the limited duration of eachteaching class

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Sprint ReviewI Last class of each SprintI Students make a demo to the Product Owner(role taken by the teachers)

I The team shows how the user stories have beencompleted in the Sprint

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

RetrospectiveI In real projects is done after the Sprint ReviewI For academic before the Sprint Review andpreferably during the demo.

I Students must make a retrospective meeting toimprove the work made by the group during thesprints

I Starfish technique

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Conclusions

I Internalise Scrum and agility as a method ofwork.

I Agile frameworks (and Scrum in particular) arenot usually included in curricula

I The knowledge of such frameworks is positivelyevaluated by companies

I Very good results for both, the organization andplanning of the classroom work and theclassroom work itself.

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

AcknowledgementsThis work is partially funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth andSports of the Community of Madrid and the European Social Fund (act1880/2015). We also acknowledge projects GROMA (MTM2015-63710-P),PPI (RTC-2015-3580-7), and UNIKO (RTC-2015-3521-7)

Images credits (slide number): (2) from http://www.scrumguides.org/; (3, 11) authors’ own work; (4) Wikipedia’suser Lakeworks; (5) OpenClipart.org (lmproulx); (9, 10) OpenClipart.org (pietluk)

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework

Questions?

Thank youemilio.lopez@urjc.es

E.L. Cano, J. Garzás, J.M. Moguerza and N.N.SánchezAppling Scrum to Organize University Degrees Coursework