3 Tips for Using SharePoint Online for Scrum

The following are three tips for using SharePoint Online for Scrum:

1. Create a site collection to hold one Scrum site per project. In the site include all the documents, schedules team member and list based information.
2. Use task prioritization techniques such as MoSCoW, Kano model, etc. to prioritize tasks in the product backlog. Posted Excel documents or simple information from lists can be used for backlog tasks and show proper status and priority.
3. Leverage SharePoint’s metrics tracking and automated testing features. Use the document libraries and lists to add all of the proper stories for the project to the site. Information needed for a story such as points, estimated time, developer, tester, story tasks, test cases, etc. For metrics, use web parts such as the chart webpart for burn-down charts, velocity, points per iteration, etc.

SharePoint & Agile Scrum

Overall – SharePoint and agile scrum are a good fit for many reasons – the common aspects of Epic -> Feature -> Story and Task are given an overview below of how they fit together in a SharePoint project.

Epics - SharePoint agile scrum allows teams to formulate epics (which would encompass a major release) – overall, epics maybe good for a new installation, upgrade, or cumulative patch of SharePoint.

Features – in SharePoint agile scrum, a feature (working functionality usually part of an epic) may consist of creating a custom web part or creating a new workflow for a change control process (these can be the features that are part of your new install).

Stories – these are the aspects that need created/built which will allow users to accomplish what they need to do in the said system. Stories are usually written in the context of:

As a <   >, I need  <   >, so that I get <  >. Where the text between the < > would be filled in by the users or an analyst working with a user.

A SharePoint example of a story would be:

As an end user, I need a button which when checked populates a list so that I get changes from the change control system from the day before.

Tasks – as part of a story – tasks will be needed so that the aspects that make up the stories asked are created and built.

SharePoint example:

                Custom list is created with proper fields

External content type is created for change control status field

Form is designed with button lookup to change control system

Thus – core agile scrum methods can indeed work well for SharePoint and tweaked and defined based on one’s business needs.

 

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