PMGT5887 Chap.3 Scrum Roles, Events, Artifacts and User Stories
Scrum Roles, Events, Artifacts and User Stories
Week 3 introduces Scrum, the framework behind the first group assignment, and this chapter covers it as the unit teaches it and as the assigned 2020 Scrum Guide words it. It explains the Scrum Team of Product Owner, development team and Scrum Master, why teams are self-organising and cross-functional, and the four time-boxed events with the limits the Guide sets for a one-month sprint.
It shows how the three pillars of transparency, inspection and adaptation are what the events put into practice, and flags the differences between the slides and the Guide, including Developers instead of a development team and the Increment instead of a burndown chart as the third artifact.
The second half turns to requirements: user stories in the role, goal and benefit form, acceptance criteria that someone else can test, the Definition of Ready used in sprint planning, the theme, epic, story and task hierarchy, and how the Product Backlog is kept current through refinement and managed in Jira. Two practice items test the artifacts and the readiness rules.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The Scrum framework and its three pillars
- 02
Product Owner, Scrum Master and developers
- 03
Four time-boxed events
- 04
Where the slides and the 2020 Scrum Guide differ
- 05
Writing a user story with acceptance criteria
- 06
The Definition of Ready
- 07
Themes, epics, stories and tasks
- 08
Product Backlog properties and refinement
Worked example · free
Checking two stories against the Definition of Ready
- +1Item 1 names a role, a goal and a benefit, so its business value is clear.
- +1Item 1 has testable acceptance criteria and an estimate of 3 points, small enough for one sprint, so it is ready.
- +1Item 2 has no user, no benefit and no criteria, so it cannot be estimated.
- +1Item 2 goes back to refinement: the Product Owner and team rewrite it as one or more stories with criteria before it can enter a sprint.
Key terms
- Product Owner
- The Scrum role responsible for the Product Backlog: its content, availability and ordering.
- Scrum Master
- The Scrum role that helps the team and organisation understand and apply Scrum effectively.
- Sprint Backlog
- The backlog items chosen for a sprint plus the plan for delivering the increment and the Sprint Goal.
- Acceptance Criteria
- Testable conditions that a user story must meet before the Product Owner accepts it as done.
- Definition of Ready
- The agreed conditions a story must meet before it can be taken into a sprint during planning.
- Epic
- A large body of work, too big for one sprint, that is split into smaller user stories.
- Backlog Refinement
- Regular review in which the backlog is pruned, extended and re-ranked so its top items are ready.
Scrum Roles, Events, Artifacts and User Stories FAQ
What are the three pillars of Scrum?
Transparency, inspection and adaptation. Work and progress must be visible so they can be inspected, and the team adapts its plan or product based on what inspection reveals.
Is the Sprint itself a Scrum event?
The Week 3 slides list four events within each sprint. The 2020 Scrum Guide also treats the Sprint as the container event that holds sprint planning, the daily scrum, the review and the retrospective.
How long is the Daily Scrum?
The 2020 Scrum Guide sets it at 15 minutes for the developers. It is a short inspection of progress toward the Sprint Goal, not a detailed status meeting.
What is the difference between an epic and a theme?
An epic is a large piece of work broken into stories. A theme, also called an initiative, groups several epics that serve one broader business objective.
Who writes user stories?
Stories are written from the customer's point of view, often in a dedicated workshop, so the customer and sponsor take part alongside representatives of the development team.
Can a sprint be made longer if the work is not finished?
No. A sprint keeps the length it started with; it is never extended or cut short. Unfinished items return to the Product Backlog, where the Product Owner reorders them for a later sprint.
Assessment move
Draw one sprint from memory with its three artifacts and four events, then check it against the chapter. Write five user stories for an app you use daily, each with two testable criteria, and run them through the readiness conditions. Keep a short list of the slide and Guide differences, because a quiz item may use either wording. Finally, explain who owns the backlog and who forecasts the sprint backlog without notes.
In your team's Jira project, create two epics, link three stories to them and add tasks under one story, exactly as the workshop does. Doing it once by hand fixes the hierarchy in memory far better than reading about it, and it is the structure the first group assignment builds on.
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