Has a candidate team of 5-9 software professionals been identified and asked to join the project team?

Yes No Has the Development Team been recently trained in using Scrum? Yes No Does the team possess, as a whole, all the skills in sufficient depth to create the product requested by the customer? Yes No Has a Scrum Master been identified and recruited for the project? Yes No Is the Scrum Master qualified, in terms of experience, to capably assist the Product Owner and Development Team create product increments? Yes No Has a capable individual from the customer been identified for the Product Owner role? Yes No Has the Product Owner received Scrum training recently? Yes No

Has the Product Owner set a Goal for the Sprint? Yes No Have the Sprint Planning and Sprint Review dates been set and communicated? Yes No Have any holidays and/or team absences been accounted for? Yes No Has a time and place for Sprint Planning to occur been set and agreed to by the entire Scrum Team? Yes No Will the Product Owner or their designate be present for Sprint Planning? Yes No Has the Product Backlog been sufficiently prepared and/or groomed for the Sprint? Yes No Has the Product Owner identified the features they would like the team to work on for the Sprint? Yes No Does the Development Team understand how to estimate Product Backlog Items? Yes No Is there a clear, concise Definition of Done that both the Development Team and Product Owner agree to abide? Yes No

Has a time and place been set for the Daily Scrum and communicated to the Development Team? Yes No Has the Sprint Burndown or similar progress artifact been prepared? Yes No Not Applicable Has the Development Team updated their estimates of remaining effort for tasks in the Sprint Backlog? Yes No Have any previously identified impediments been removed or escalated by the Scrum Master? Yes No Is the Development Team able to visualize their Sprint Backlog and Product Increment easily where the Daily Scrum is being held? Yes No Are stakeholders or other interested parties aware they can attend/observe the Daily Scrum to gain insight into the projects status? Yes No

Has a time and place been set for the Sprint Review and communicated to the Scrum Team and Stakeholders? Yes No Have all committed user stories for the Sprint been completed according to the Definition of Done? Yes No Has the Development Teams velocity (story points or other measure of progress) been calculated? Yes No Is there a projector and whiteboard available? Yes No Is the Development Team able to demonstrate the product increment functionality at the Sprint Review location (eg. network access, laptop availability, etc.) Yes No Has the team prepared a plan or agenda for the Sprint Review and rehearsed? Yes No

Has a time and place been set for the Sprint Retrospective and communicated to the entire Scrum Team? Yes No Has a method for discussion of team improvement strategies been selected? Yes No Is there a Team Improvement Product Backlog? Yes No Is the Scrum Master running the Sprint Retrospective? * Yes No

These checklists were inspired by a TED talk given by Dr. Atul Gawande on How do we heal medicine? in which he describes how he developed a simple preflight checklist of critical to-do items for patient surgical care in conjunction with Boeing that resulted in a decrease in complications by 35% and deaths by 47%. Dr. Gawande understood that a systems-based approach to complex, high-risk projects is essential to improving outcomes, and that it is impossible, futile and counterproductive to try and implement recipes for how to do surgery. From this, he discovered that other high-risk occupations, like the aviation industry, employ checklists of critical items that set the conditions for the best possible outcomes, all other things being equal. Software development shares these concerns, especially when using agile frameworks like Scrum which can feel uncontrolled and unnerving at times. To address this, I created these checklists to give Scrum Teams confidence in how they execute the critical aspects of their project. Theyre by no means exhaustive or authoritative they are intended to provide a platform that can and should be adapted by teams as they learn more about how to work with Scrum.

Chris R. Chapman President, Chief Scrum Master Derailleur Consulting cchapman@derailleurconsulting.com @DerailleurAgile See the TED talk here: http://bit.ly/J2lUao