Scrum checklist

Posted on by

NOTE – this checklist is deprecated. The latest version is here.

Here’s a first draft of a simple checklist for those of you that are doing Scrum (or believe so…).

The main target group for this checklist are teams that are relatively new to Scrum and likely to get many things wrong.

Each item is tagged by priority. I consider the priority 1 items to be pretty fundamental, I’d hesitate to even call it Scrum if a company hasn’t implemented all those items (or at least has good reasons not to).

When helping companies implement Scrum I normally start by ensuring that all priority 1 items on the checklist are implemented (or intentionally skipped) before even considering priority 2 and priority 3.

Note that these aren’t rules. They are guidelines. A team of 2 people might decide to skip the daily Scrum, since they are pair programming all day anyway and might not need a seperate meeting to synchronize. Fine. Then they have intentionally skipped a Scrum practice but ensured that the underlying purpose of the scrum practice has been fulfillied in another way. That is what counts!

If you are doing Scrum it might be interesting to have the team go through this list at a retrospective. As a discussion tool, not an evaluation tool.

Any feedback is welcome. I plan to update this list.

Posted on by
Subscribe to Henrik's RSS feed

15 responses on “Scrum checklist”

  2. Henrik – love the mindmap (and the book which I’m half way through, starting 2 hours ago… a great work…)

    Just wondering whether you’ve got any other MindManager templates for collecting together a team’s thoughts and managing the Scrum process… I use MindManager in my workshops and want to evolve some templates.. for my Scrum consulting..

    Reply

  3. Hi Bazil,

    Sorry, I don’t have any mind manager templates, I just start from scratch and use the default template every time. Mindmapping is sort of like a whiteboard to me, templates make me feel constrained.

    Reply

  4. Henrik, thanks for this post. This check list seems to be extremely useful. I’m about to introduce Scrum to the team and will base on it (as well as on your Scrum and XP from the Trenches).
    Thank you and keep posting such useful stuff

    Reply

  7. Henrik – I am an avid mindmapper an agile enthusiast and you have done an excellent job on this. I have briefly reviewed and will take some time later to review again. If I have any feedback, I will pass it your way. Keep up the great work!

    Reply

  12. Excellent work – for me the only missing part, which as a coach I constantly get asked – is what it the preScrum project checklist? I shall simply add this part to your mindmap.

    Reply

  13. Pre-Scrum project checklist? Not sure what you mean there. Do you have an example of an item that would be on that checklist?

    I can’t think of anything that a company must do before starting to implement Scrum. Some parts are really easy to get started with – for example retrospectives and the daily Scrum. Just do it!

    Reply

  14. Thanks for the checklist. Like your other material, it is superb!

    I wonder if the “Impediment backlog” topic could be replaced by adding a subtopic on resolving impediments to “Scrum Master” or to “Retrospective”?

    Also, complementing this Scrum checklist with something on technical practices would be really useful too.

    Reply

  15. Hi Henrik,
    I’ve been using your scrum checklist for years with my team and recently wanted to use the mindmap. I can see the PDF and MindManager are not viable links anymore. Is there any ways these could be put back up for download please?
    I’m sure the community would be very grateful as I 🙂

    Thank you kindly,

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.