Agile Frameworks and Practices
What to Know
Know the structure and events of the most common frameworks. Scrum: three roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers), five events (Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Retrospective), three artifacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment) with commitments (Product Goal, Sprint Goal, Definition of Done). Sprints are fixed-length, typically 1–4 weeks, and no changes that endanger the Sprint Goal occur during a Sprint.
Kanban: visualize workflow, limit work in progress (WIP), manage flow, make policies explicit, implement feedback loops, improve collaboratively. Kanban is continuous-flow, not time-boxed, and uses cycle time and lead time.
XP: test-driven development, pair programming, continuous integration, small releases, refactoring, simple design.
Scrumban blends Scrum cadence with Kanban WIP limits. SAFe/LeSS scale Agile across many teams; know that scaling frameworks add coordination layers but should preserve team autonomy.
Traps
- Sprint Review vs. Retrospective. Review = inspect the product/increment with stakeholders; Retrospective = inspect the process/team. Questions swap these deliberately.
- Daily Scrum is not a status report to a manager. It is for the Developers to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal.
- Sprint length is fixed once chosen; changing it mid-stream is a smell.
- Kanban does not require a Sprint or a Product Owner role by default.
- The Scrum Master is not a project manager and does not assign work.
Rule of Thumb
Match the purpose to the event: product inspection → Review; process improvement → Retrospective; daily sync → Daily Scrum; plan the Sprint → Sprint Planning.
Worked Example
A team finishes items out of order and can't predict delivery. Applying Kanban, they visualize the board, set explicit WIP limits per column, and measure cycle time - improving flow without adding a Sprint cadence.