What are Scrum Artefacts and Why Do They Matter?

As you undergo your transformative journey in the world of Agile Scrum, something that you will often hear is the term Scrum Artefacts. Interestingly, the word artefact is historically associated with archaeological ruins and ancient relics, but in the world of Agile, Scrum Artefacts relate to the essential information necessary during a product’s development stage, particularly Agile Software Development.

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Scrum Artefacts can be broken up into the following parts:

The Product Backlog

This artefact can involve a list of new features, such as enhancements, bug fixes, tasks, or work requirements needed to build a product. The Product Backlog could also be considered to be a live artefact since it is continually updated and revised. Another way to look at this artefact is to see it as a prioritised list of deliverables or decision-making artefact, whereby specific deliverables are estimated, revised and prioritised.

The Sprint Backlog

Created by the development team, the Sprint Backlog focuses exclusively on the upcoming sprint and increment. For example, if the developers wanted to build an e-commerce website, the product backlog would contain all the items needed for an e-commerce website, but the sprint backlog would focus on the shopping cart functionality that they were building in this sprint.

Product Increment

Lastly, Product Increment refers to the working product or software that is delivered to a customer, and is considered to be the most important part of scrum. It also includes increments of all the other sprints, typically agreed upon during the Scrum Planning Phase.

At this level the team is typically concerned with getting the product from concept to complete, all within the sprint. This is beneficial for customers because it ensures that they have a potentially releasable product or feature within a month of it’s selection for the sprint backlog.

So, Why Are They Called Artefacts?

One way to look at Scrum Artefacts is to see them as physically interactable things we can look at and use for navigation on exactly where we want to go.

They ultimately serve us with transparency, making processes visible to the Scrum Team and the Stakeholders, so that all parties can critically assess what is happening and determine next steps. This is the essence of effective Scrum Product Development.

Why They Matter

So, why exactly do Scrum Artefacts matter?

Scrum Artefacts provide essential metadata to Scrum teams, which can provide them useful insight into the overall performance of a sprint. In the grand scheme of things, they also aid in inspiring collaboration, and coordination among team members across the various stages of Scrum.

So in summary, Scrum Artefacts are like key checkpoints in the race to the finish line, and to get to the finish line it requires dedication, optimization, and collaboration.

Pragmatic Shift is a Scrum Training, Agile Consulting, and Agile Coaching consultancy that specializes in delivering Scrum.Org certified scrum courses, and helping organizations increase their business agility and product development success through agile consulting and coaching.

We firmly believe that a shift to agile is a pragmatic shift. A natural evolution from traditional project management and product management. A proven, reliable, and resilient framework for addressing compelling problems and developing complex solutions.

Over a decade’s worth of experience as an agile practitioner, agile consultant, agile coach, and scrum trainer informs our pragmatic approach to change. Agile dogma has no value in the context of product development or organizational change.

Instead, we look to start where you are, work with what you have, and make meaningful interventions that align with the objectives you are trying to achieve.

Progress over perfection.

If this sounds like a pragmatic solution to you, visit the following pages for more information.

Scrum Training: https://pragmaticshift.com/training/

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Agile Coaching: https://www.thescrumcoach.uk

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