Introduction
Scrum artifacts are points that a scrum team and stakeholders use to explain the product in detail. This helps to develop the product and perform actions while working on the project. The three common and most used agile scrum artifacts are product backlog, sprint backlog, and increments.
A Small background of scrum
Scrum is a framework which consists of rules, roles, events, and artifacts that are completely used to implement agile projects. It's an iterative approach that consists of sprints that last from one to four weeks.
Scrum helps the team to work together. The Scrum team is a completely self-organizing team. In Scrum no leader is required to decide tasks for each and every person or to resolve a problem. Those issues are discussed by the team only.
Scrum teams are supported by two specific roles. The first role is the ScrumMaster. ScrumMaster is the same as a coach for the team. It helps the team members to use the Scrum process to perform their best.The other role is the product owner.
The product owner is the single person which is responsible for the success of a product and helps to maximize the value of that product.
What are Scrum Artifacts ?
Scrum Artifacts are a very important factor to complete the product development process. It helps to develop the product successfully. Scrum Artifacts help team members to ensure about the necessary items which are required to complete the Sprint. It also helps the team to organize the final deliverable. Scrum Artifacts are very important to occur in the product development process and to become a successful product. These three artifacts have a list of things that are arranged according to priority.
The Three Scrum Artifacts are:
- Product Backlog
- Sprint Backlog
- Product Increment
Product Backlog
Product Backlog is a list of everything which is required to achieve on a project and broken down into many items. It is managed by the Product Owner and is that single person who is responsible for handling the Product Backlog.The product Backlog is updated when any new information is available.
In the Product Backlog, items are arranged according to the priority of the items. The highest priority items are kept at the top of the list and as the list goes on priority of the item decreases. The critical tasks that require immediate attention are kept at the front for the team to complete that task first. The Product Owner plans a gathering which is called a Product backlog Refinement meeting. During this meeting, the team comes together and breaks down product backlog items into multiple smaller items. In this meeting, the product owner also adds many details like size of the product backlog item.
Sprint Backlog
Sprint backlog is that part of a product backlog on which team is going to work on their sprint. It is like a To-Do list for the sprint.
The backlog is further split down into multiple tasks for the team to work. Within the sprint backlog all items must get developed, tested, and documented in a perfect way. The product owner helps the scrum team to come up with a sprint backlog in their sprint meeting.
Sprint backlog can be changed by the scrum team. Within a Sprint backlog Work is discussed regularly in daily scrum. The sprint backlog is adjusted as needed. All this happens at the time of a short sprint. The scrum team can make all required changes during the sprint. If any new work is required, it can also be added to the sprint backlog too. Then as the work completes, the approximation for remaining work has to be updated. They also remove all unnecessary items called backlog refining.
Product Increment
Product Increment is one of the most important scrum Artifacts. It includes all required product backlog items that have been completed during the time of sprint. All the product increments done must fit into the team’s DOD (definition of done) and the product owner must accept it. The increment of a product is not only the sum of product backlog items that are completed in a sprint, but also value to the increment over the last number of complete sprints.
Conclusion
Scrum Artifacts are a very important factor for completing any project. Each artifact has a commitment like Product Goal for the Product Backlog, Sprint Goal for the Sprint Backlog. Every artifact supports the developers' work which is a very important factor for the completion of any Scrum-based project.