Shadowing Practice: Intro to Scrum in Under 10 Minutes - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Hi, this is me.
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Hi, this is me.
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My name is Hamid Chodjai
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and I've been involved with a number of software development projects over the years at a number of different companies
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and I've come to recognize Scrum as one of the best agile development practices in use today.
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In this fast-paced video, I want to show you why Scrum is
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so great and how you can get started with Scrum in under 10 minutes.
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I'll cover all the core Scrum concepts like product backlogs, team roles, sprints, turn-down charts, and more.
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So get ready to be bombarded with information.
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Let's say this is the product we want to build.
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For this product, we get all kinds of feature requests from customers, executives, or even other team members.
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In Scrum, features are written from the perspective of the end-user.
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Therefore, features are known as user stories.
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The collection of all these user stories is called the product backlog.
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Another way to think of the product backlog is to think
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of it as a wish list of all the things that would make this product great.
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Once we have our wish list or the product backlog, we need to start planning which specific user stories we're going to be putting into a particular release of our product.
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But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
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Let's back up a bit.
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To build this product, we need to have one
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or more people in our team who are going to play a variety of roles.
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First, we need her.
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She plays the role of product owner and helps make sure the right features make it into the product backlog, representing the users and customers of the product.
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She helps set the direction of the product.
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Then we need this guy.
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He's the scrum master and his job is to make sure the project is progressing smoothly
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and that every member of the team has the tools they need to get their job done.
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He sets up meetings, monitors the work being done and facilitates release planning.
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He's a lot like a project manager but that's such a boring title
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so we'll call him a scrum master to imply he knows some jujitsu.
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And the rest of the team has similar roles to other development processes.
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These guys build the product while these guys test it to make sure to make sure it works right.
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These guys use it and hopefully pay for it.
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And these guys, they generally get in the way, but it turns out you can't build many products without them.
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But let's get back to this, release planning.
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To plan a release, the team starts with this, the product backlog, and they identify the user stories they want to put into this release.
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These user stories then become part of the release backlog.
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The team then prioritizes the user stories and estimates the amount of work involved for each item.
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Sometimes larger user stories are broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks.
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The collection of all the estimates provides a rough idea of the total amount of work involved to complete the entire release.
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A quick side note about estimates.
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There are a lot of techniques for creating good estimates.
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Some prefer estimating in story points, where estimates are made relative to building a small component with a known level of difficulty.
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Unfortunately, story points don't answer the question of, when will my project ship?
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I've found that the best technique is to estimate work in hours, but to use some standards in how estimates are done.
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For example, things that take less than a day to complete will be estimated as 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, or 8 hours.
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Every item will fall into one of those buckets.
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There will be no 3-hour estimates, for example.
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A 3-hour item would fall into the 4-hour bucket.
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Larger items will be estimated as 2 days, 3 days, 5 days, or 10 days.
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Again, all estimates in between will fall into the next larger bucket.
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Extremely large items are similarly estimated in months.
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1, 2, 3, or 6 months.
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But the reality is that such items will need to be broken down substantially before work actually begins.
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We'll come back to these estimates in just a minute.
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But for now, let's get back to this, the release backlog.
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With a prioritized set of user stories and the estimated amount of work at hand, we're now ready to plan out several sprints to get the work done.
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Sprints are short duration milestones that allow teams to tackle a manageable chunk of the project
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and get it to a ship ready state.
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Sprints generally range from a couple of days to as much as 30 days in length, depending on the product's release cycles.
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The shorter the release cycles, the shorter each sprint should be.
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And you'll want to have at least two to as many as a dozen sprints in a given release.
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So at this point, we can take our release backlog and split it up into several of these, sprint backlogs.
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One of the most important things to remember about sprints is
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that the goal of each sprint is to get a subset of the release backlog to a ship-ready state.
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So at the end of each sprint, you should have a fully tested product with all the features of the sprint 100% complete.
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Since sprints are a very short but a realistic representation of part of the product, a late finish of the sprint is a great indicator
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that the project is not on schedule and something needs to be done.
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Therefore, it's extremely important to monitor the progress of each sprint with this, a burndown chart.
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The burndown chart is the number one reason for scrum's popularity
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and one of the best project visibility tools to ensure a project is progressing smoothly.
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The burndown chart provides a day-by-day measure of the amount of work that remains in a given sprint or release.
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In this graph, you can see that the amount of work remaining bounces up and down from day to day, but is generally trending towards zero.
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Because historical information is provided in the burndown chart, it's easy to see if the team is on the right track.
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Using the burndown chart, the team can quickly calculate this, the slope of the graph, which is also called the burndown velocity.
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This is the average rate of productivity for each day.
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For example, a team's rate of productivity might be that on a typical day they finish approximately 50 hours of work.
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Knowing that, it's possible to calculate an estimated completion date for the sprint, or even for the entire release based on the amount of work remaining.
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What's great about the burndown chart is that we can compare our actual velocity
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and projected completion date to what the team needs to do in order to finish on time.
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This is perhaps the most useful piece of knowledge that any team member, product owner, or product executive can have about the project.
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Because knowing whether
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or not the project is on track early in the schedule
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can help teams make the proper adjustments necessary to get the project on track.
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The burndown chart provides empirical proof that the project is on track or if it's going to be late.
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So let's talk a little about where the data for this incredibly useful burndown chart comes from.
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As you recall, part of the release planning process was to create an estimate for each user story in the release backlog.
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The collection of these estimates for a given sprint represents the total amount of work
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that must be done to complete that sprint.
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As each team member goes through and makes progress on one or more of the user stories, they simply update the amount of time remaining for each of their own items.
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So the total amount of time remaining on the group of user stories
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that make up a sprint changes on a day-by-day basis, hopefully going downward until it hits zero when the sprint is complete.
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The burndown chart aggregates the remaining work data and shows it visually.
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It's brilliant because it communicates a massive amount of information in just a few seconds.
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And that brings us to this, the daily scrum.
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The daily scrum is an essential tool to having communication flow freely between team members.
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The idea is to have fast-paced, stand-up meetings where team members quickly list the work they have completed since the last meeting and any obstacles in their way.
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By meeting daily, it ensures the team is always in sync
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and any major issues are dealt with as soon as they are known.
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Finally, as each sprint comes to a finish, it's important to have a sprint retrospective meeting where the team can reflect on what went right and areas of improvement.
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After all, Scrum is a flexible, agile development method that needs constant improving and tweaking for every team.
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So there you have it, Scrum in under 10 minutes.
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You now know all the essential concepts to start implementing Scrum inside of your organization.
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But wait a second, what about tools to help you implement Scrum?
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Well, it just so happens that I've spent the last 10 years building such a tool, with a lot of help from these guys, a group of genius coders and design ninjas.
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The tool is called OnTime, and it helps you manage your products, your backlogs, your team, releases and your sprints.
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It gives you project visibility with burndown charts and always answers the question of who is working on what.
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You can get started with it for free at Axiosoft.com.
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Of course, you could use a giant whiteboard, some note cards, and a bunch of different spreadsheets to track everything.
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You could also use an abacus instead of a calculator to do math, but we're getting a little off topic.
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So let's quickly review everything.
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In Scrum, you work with this, a product backlog, which is nothing more than a list of features that we call user stories.
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You then break down the product backlog into one or more release backlogs.
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And for a given release, you further break up the release backlog into a number of sprint backlogs, which are essentially short duration milestones throughout your project.
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You then monitor the progress of each sprint using these, burndown charts, and have daily scrum meetings to ensure everything is on track.
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After each sprint, you have a retrospective meeting to fine-tune everything.
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And if you want a tool to implement scrum, you can use OnTime.
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It'll help you ship software OnTime.
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That's all there is to it.
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Oh, and one last thing.
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Whether you loved or hated this video, I'd love to hear from you.
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You can reach me on Twitter or via email if you have any feedback.
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Now get going, create a great team, collaborate, and ship software on time.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will delve into the exciting world of Scrum—a popular agile framework used in software development. By watching the video and practicing the key concepts covered, you will enhance your understanding of project management while simultaneously improving your English speaking skills. As you explore terms such as "product backlog" and "user stories," you'll practice your English pronunciation and vocabulary through engaging content. This is a great opportunity to learn English with YouTube while immersing yourself in important industry terminology.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Scrum: An agile framework used to facilitate effective team collaboration on complex projects.
- Product backlog: A prioritized list of features or requirements for your product, resembling a wish list.
- User stories: Descriptions of features from the end user's perspective, which help guide development.
- Scrum master: A facilitator responsible for ensuring that the Scrum process runs smoothly.
- Release planning: The process of selecting and prioritizing user stories for an upcoming product release.
- Estimates: Assessments regarding the amount of work involved in completing specific tasks.
Practice Tips
As you engage with the content, consider employing the shadowing technique to enhance your learning. Here are some tips to effectively practice your English speaking skills while watching the video:
- Start with pauses: After listening to a segment, pause the video and try to repeat the phrases aloud. This will help you improve your English pronunciation and fluency.
- Match your pace: The video's fast-paced delivery can be challenging. Gradually increase your speed as you become more comfortable with the vocabulary, mimicking the speaker's tone and rhythm.
- Focus on intonation: Pay attention to how the speaker emphasizes certain words and phrases. This will aid you in improving your overall speaking skills.
- Rewatch key sections: If you encounter particularly tricky segments, don't hesitate to replay them. This repetition can reinforce your learning and aid in memorization.
- Practice with a partner: Find a peer or study buddy to practice discussions based on the video content. This will help you gain confidence and enhance your ability to express ideas.
By integrating these practice methods with your learning, you'll not only deepen your understanding of Scrum but also enhance your English speaking ability through consistent practice and engagement.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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