Introduction to Scrum and how to use it in engineering education

Abstract

This is a workshop proposal. Scrum is a popular form of Agile project management. Its applications now include diverse areas such as software development, engineering, urban planning, and law. Scrum has also been used in software engineering educational programs, but its use in other engineering education is lagging. Within our electrical and computer engineering program, we introduced Scrum to help students improve their teamwork efficacy in projects and courses [1]. However, Scrum can be applied to all areas of engineering. Attendees of this workshop will first learn the basics of Scrum in general, followed by discussion and examples of how it can be applied to their engineering courses and overall program. We will also discuss ways to engage students in teamwork. Scrum methodology consists of (see www.scrumguides.org):

• Members: product owner, Scrum master, and development team • Events: sprint planning, daily stand-up, sprint review, and sprint retrospective • Artifacts: product and sprint backlog • Definitions and rules governing Scrum implementation

We cannot expect freshman or sophomore engineering students to have the sophistication necessary for full implementation of all of these in addition to teamwork. Furthermore, Scrum in educational environments is a teaching and learning tool, and it needs to be modified from its original design. How to address these issues will be discussed during the workshop as will all of the tools used in implementing Scrum. Attendees will work in teams to write drafts of basic Scrum artifacts. We hope that our experience and information provided will enable others to implement Scrum in their courses and programs.

Learning outcomes - participants will be able to:

• Explain the main components of Scrum • Learn the basics of Trello and CATME tools used in our implementation of Scrum • Design a project board on Trello, fill in the backlog and design the first sprint • Start using basic rubrics to evaluate Scrum and project management

Audience: instructors of undergraduate and graduate courses that have a significant term project component that requires use of project management. Duration: 2 hours Resources: laptop and Wi-Fi connection Other outcomes: potential collaboration on educational research project(s) related to Scrum application to project management.

[1] B. Pejcinovic, R. B. Bass, and P. Wong, “Assessing Scrum Project Management and Teamwork in Electrical and Computer Engineering Courses,” in 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2018.