Scrum Master Certification: Basic Concepts

By Author: Subra Siddrehamian.
Total Articles: 6
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Software development can be a long arduous and tedious process. With the pressure of deadlines to meet, you simply cannot take your time.

Software development can be a long arduous and tedious process. With the pressure of deadlines to meet, you simply cannot take your time. Coming up with solutions can be a strenuous task, if not taken with the right approach. Scrum simplifies matters, and arranges everything into simplified small bits. Less time is spent going round in circles, and more of your time is focused on building your program. Many webdevelopers consider it an advantage to be have a Scrum Master Certification. Well, here are small descriptions on some scrum concepts, which can also help you pass that PSM exam:

Product backlog and product owner:Anyone with a Scrum Master Certification will be able to tell you that, the product backlog is a list of the most important items, descending to the least important items. For example if you are building an e-commerce site you will arrange items like shopping cart, social media plugins at the top while other items like Facebook page may be a lower priority item. ...
... The product owner will be selected amongst you, usually the project manager, who will be in charge of the product backlog.

Sprints and the sprint nacklog: There is the event that the product owner can change their mind on the most important items. This may lead to interruptions to the developer team, as they keep on re-focusing their energy towards the direction of the product owner. This is where sprints come in. The developer team and the project manager, come up with a sprint backlog. The sprints can be from a week to a month and during the sprints the project manager is not allowed to change his mind. Be watchful as there are always PSM questions about sprints.

Daily scrums: It is true many developers dislike meetings, as it takes them away from their work. Daily scrums are once a day meetings, meant to assist in co-ordination of implementation of the items on the sprint backlog. To ensure these meetings are short and to the point, there are three main questions that are asked; i. What have you done since yesterday? ii. What do you plan to do today? iii. Any impediments in your way? This ensures that two people do not work on the same thing and solutions to impediments are arrived at faster. You can bet you will be sure to come across questions dealing with daily scrums across your Scrum Master exam.

Stories and tasks: Be sure to know this when doing your PSM exam that stories refer to items with business values, such as shopping carts and Facebook page. This are usually owned by the product owner, while tasks involve the implementation of these stories. It is absolutely vital for the developer team to breakdown stories into tasks or the team risks going round in circles on the same story.

These are just a few of the terms used in scrum, there are many more such as scrumboard, burndown charts and team velocity. If you are planning to do a PSM exam, over your course you will be sure to come along this terms. The may sound lofty, but they are quite simple in description. One thing you can rest assured is, if you are pursuing Scrum Master Certification you will be sure to get things done a whole lot faster.
Resource: http://www.testtakeronline.com/catalog/scrum-master-skill.htm