Scrum helps in developing complex products. It is easy to learn but hard to master. Easy to learn, because we have a guide with rules which beginners can refer back to. Hard to master, because just blindly following the events will not get you anywhere. Many teams try to bend the rules without mastering them first, which is why they fail and end up blaming Scrum.

Scrum guide is clear about the events and explains why they exists. Although sometimes it is not sufficient to just point people towards it and assume they will read it. Shared document is not shared understanding. Some may never read it and they are usually after a much simpler explanation on the spot. That’s why during or after implementation of Scrum, we usually hear some basic questions within an organisation and this article explains one of them.

Briefly explain what we do in the Scrum events in layman’s terms?

Here is what you can explain, assuming you are explaining to a layman who have no idea why the development team have selected Scrum. Before going to the events, lets understand some basic terms which makes it easier to explain the events.

Requirement: A “problem”, because the solution doesn’t exist yet. Our aim is to implement the solution.

Epic: A big problem.

Story: A small part of a big problem

Bug: An unknown problem

Scrum Team: The godly creatures with super powers 😉

Now, let’s see how we can explain the Scrum events and activity.

Refinement Activity: Scrum Team try to understand if they have enough information about the variety of problems.

Sprint Planning: Choose the bigger problems and create a strategy on how to implement the solution.

Sprint: Implement the solution without being distracted.

Daily Scrum: Daily check on “Are we on the right track on creating the solution?”

Sprint Review: Understand the solution and verify if it actually make someone’s life easier.

Sprint Retrospective: Have we learned anything new while creating the solution?

That’s it, it’s just common sense redefined. As long as we realise we are solving a problem of variable complexities and use the above thought as a guide, it all make sense. Hope this article can solve someone’s understanding of the events and what we should be doing in them.