Scrum Best Practices for Software Development

Since 2007, ScienceSoft has been at the forefront of Agile implementation.

98% of ScienceSoft’s projects follow Agile, with over 80% employing Scrum variations.

ScienceSoft’s Scrum professionals are accredited by leading organizations such as the Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, and SAFe.

Our project management office (PMO) continuously compiles best practices from thousands of past projects, providing insights on how to adapt Scrum processes to meet the specific needs of different projects.

Multiple Scrum variations:

ScrumBut for tailored Scrum practices.
Waterfall + Scrum and Scrum + Kanban hybrids for phase-specific needs.
LeSS, LeSS Huge, and Scrum of Scrums for large-scale projects.

Proven success in complex Scrum projects: led a highly dynamic 5-year Scrum project with 7 teams (30+ experts) for a global image processing leader and a 2-year Scrum project with 40+ specialists for the world’s largest PLM platform.

6 Scrum Best Practices We Stick To

Focusing on meeting project business goals

At the core of our approach is the unwavering commitment to achieving your project business goals by overcoming any obstacles, whether they relate to time constraints, budget limitations, technological challenges, or rapidly shifting priorities. Unlike the standard practice of merely ticking off tasks, which is all too common in the industry, we offer genuine, active, results-oriented project management that guarantees the success of your initiatives, no matter the circumstances. We ensure that every sprint aligns with overarching business objectives, adapting strategies and resources as needed to overcome challenges and deliver valuable outcomes for our clients.

Protecting the sprint scope

While Scrum's flexibility is its key advantage, we avoid altering priorities mid-sprint to prevent workflow disruptions, deadline issues, or compromised deliverables. If changes during the sprint are inevitable, we apply strict change control strategies to assess them and ensure stakeholders are aware of their potential impact on delivery timelines and quality.

Balancing technical debt and new development

Technical debt can slow down even the best Scrum teams by shifting focus from new feature development to bug fixes and inefficiencies. To counteract this, we set aside time for technical debt resolution in each sprint, prioritize it in our backlog, enforce regular code reviews and refactoring, and clearly communicate its long-term impact to stakeholders.

Driving effective collaboration

Collaboration among the project team is the driving force behind Scrum's success. In communication with client's managers and power users, we prioritize convenience and transparency, designing communication and reporting schedules to keep you consistently updated without demanding excessive time. For our distributed development teams, we establish clear response time limits and ensure at least a 2-6-hour overlap in work time between time zones.

Avoiding vanity metrics

We emphasize metrics that yield genuine insights into process efficiency, intentionally keeping some metrics informal to prevent manipulation. While we customize KPIs for each project, our fundamental metrics for each Scrum project are:

Team velocity (the amount of work delivered per sprint).
Sprint completion rate (team commitments versus completed tasks).
Sprint burndown (the consistency and flow of the sprint).

Keeping the entire project team motivated and involved

True Scrum environments are harsh and fast. To manage this, we closely monitor development team workload and stress, promote a balanced work-life dynamic, and promptly address burnout by adjusting task distribution or sprint commitments. Our culture supports proactivity, open sharing of ideas, and empowering team members through decentralized decision-making to foster project ownership and accountability. In communication with client's employees, we use business language for non-IT stakeholders and technical jargon for IT experts to ensure all voices are heard and valued. We further enhance their understanding and engagement by actively utilizing visual aids such as charts, graphs, and prototypes to clarify complex ideas and demonstrate their impact.

Key Aspects of Scrum

In Scrum, a sprint is a time-boxed iteration during which a specific set of work must be completed and made ready for review.

Scrum process

Typically, sprints at ScienceSoft take from 1–4 weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for shorter iterations, since they are good for rapid feedback and course correction. Longer iterations are good for focusing on complex tasks without the administrative overhead of frequent planning, reviews, and retrospectives.

Pavel Ilyusenko

Head of PMO at ScienceSoft

Does each sprint end with a release?

While our default approach is end-of-sprint releases, this isn't always the case. In contexts where stability is vital, like enterprise environments, we may consolidate several sprints into monthly or quarterly releases. This approach allows us to conduct thorough testing and quality assurance, leading to a more reliable product. Conversely, sometimes we opt for continuous releases by deploying small updates as soon as they're ready for production. This approach enables quicker feedback and enhances flexibility, allowing teams to react promptly to shifting priorities and user needs. However, it requires strong automation and a dependable infrastructure, including continuous integration and deployment pipelines and automated testing at all levels.

From ScienceSoft’s experience, Scrum efficiency and predictability are maximized with teams of 5 to 9 members. This team size not only promotes effective collaboration but also reduces the risk of duplicated efforts and ensures timely updates. A typical team consists of three developers, one QA, and one project manager/Product Owner. For larger projects, we integrate several Scrum teams under synchronized guidance to maintain consistency and alignment. Visit our dedicated page to learn more about team composition and roles in ScienceSoft’s projects.

Below, we describe the full Scrum process and how we bend or break certain Scrum rules to better fit the project's context and needs.

How We Deliver Software in Scrum Sprints

1. Project planning and backlog creation

Essence: ensuring the Scrum team is aligned, informed, and ready to begin the development process.

Key deliverables: a project vision statement, a stakeholder map and engagement plan, user stories with acceptance criteria, a definition of done (DoD), a user story map, a prioritized product backlog, initial architecture diagrams, a team structure and resource allocations plan, configured development environments and toolchains, and a risk register with mitigation plans.


	Acceptance criteria define the specific conditions that must be met for a particular story to be accepted by the product owner or stakeholders. A product backlog is a list of the new features (usually in the form of user stories), changes to existing features, bug fixes, infrastructure changes or other activities that a team may deliver in order to achieve a specific outcome. A definition of done (DoD) is a checklist that outlines general criteria necessary for all product increments or user stories to be considered complete. The DoD typically includes criteria related to code quality, testing, functional and non-functional requirements, documentation, deployment readiness, and other general requirements. For example: Code has been peer-reviewed and approved by at least one other team member. Code is free of critical and major issues identified by static code analysis tools. Unit tests pass with a specified minimum coverage percentage (e.g., 80%). Integration tests have been conducted if applicable, and all pass. User acceptance testing (UAT) has been completed, and feedback has been addressed. Code is adequately commented where necessary to ensure maintainability. User-facing documentation (e.g., help files, release notes) is updated to reflect changes. All acceptance criteria for the user story or feature are met. Performance benchmarks have been met, and no significant degradation has occurred. Security reviews have been conducted, and no vulnerabilities remain unaddressed. The code is merged into the main branch without conflicts. The feature is deployed to the appropriate environment (e.g., staging, production). The product owner or designated approver has signed off on the completion of the work item.

Timelines: ~2–4 weeks for a medium-sized project. This phase does not have a fixed duration and can vary significantly depending on project complexity, team size, and stakeholder availability.

Role	Involvement and responsibilities
Role Stakeholders on the client’s side	Involvement and responsibilities Collaborate with the Product Owner to define the initial set of product backlog items. Provide input on business objectives, user needs, and priorities.
Role Product Owner	Involvement and responsibilities Identifies and engages all relevant stakeholders, gathering their input and aligning expectations to ensure their needs are addressed. Collaborates with stakeholders to gather and refine requirements. Develops a clear and shared understanding of the project's purpose and desired outcomes among all team members and stakeholders. Leads the backlog creation process, ensuring it is well-organized and prioritized. Identifies potential risks in the delivery process and develops mitigation strategies to address them.
Role Scrum Master	Involvement and responsibilities Assembles a development team with the necessary skills and allocates resources to optimize project execution. Identifies potential risks in the development process and develops mitigation strategies to address them.
Role Development team	Involvement and responsibilities Participate in refining the backlog by providing time estimates and technical execution ideas. Offer insights and feedback on the feasibility and complexity of tasks. Ensure all necessary tools, environments, and infrastructure are in place for development. Develop a high-level architecture and design approach to guide development efforts.

2. Sprint planning

Essence: defining what can be delivered in the upcoming sprint, how that work will be achieved, and what are the potential risks. The team selects some number of product backlog items, usually in the form of user stories, and identifies the tasks necessary to complete each user story. These items are prioritized based on their alignment with the project business goals. This ensures that the team is always working on tasks that contribute most significantly to achieving these objectives.

Key deliverables: a sprint goal, a sprint backlog (features, fixes, and technical work), task breakdowns, estimates of efforts, and an agreement on who will work on which tasks.

Timelines: Sprint planning sessions can last up to 8 hours for a one-month sprint. For shorter sprints (e.g., 2 weeks long), the planning time is reduced to about 2–4 hours.

Possible success controls: sprint goal success rate, confidence to meet the sprint goal, commitment reliability, and team velocity data.

Role	Involvement and responsibilities
Role Stakeholders on the client’s side	Involvement and responsibilities Can provide last-minute insights or changes in priorities through the Product Owner before the sprint planning session.
Role Product Owner	Involvement and responsibilities Articulates the overarching objective for the sprint, aligning it with the product vision and stakeholder needs. Ensures that the product backlog is well-organized, with the most valuable and urgent items at the top. Answers questions about backlog items, ensuring that the development team understands what needs to be accomplished. Works closely with the development team to discuss and negotiate which backlog items will be included in the sprint based on team capacity and priorities.
Role Scrum Master	Involvement and responsibilities Helps the Product Owner and the development team define a clear and achievable sprint goal. Supports the Product Owner in presenting and prioritizing the product backlog items. Facilitates discussions to clarify user stories and acceptance criteria. Ensures that any ambiguities in the user stories are addressed. Guides the team in making realistic commitments based on their capacity and past performance.
Role Development team	Involvement and responsibilities Review and discuss the product backlog items to ensure a clear understanding of requirements and acceptance criteria. Estimate the effort required for each task. Assess the team's capacity for the upcoming sprint and commit to a set of deliverables that are achievable within the sprint timeframe. Discuss potential dependencies between tasks and identify any risks that might impact the sprint.

Alex Ramasheuski

Head of .NET Development at ScienceSoft

How we get accurate work time estimates

To ensure accurate effort estimation during sprint planning and refinement meetings, we often employ the planning poker technique. It's a collaborative method where everyone privately jots down their “time bets” (how long they think it will take to complete a task), and then everybody reveals them all at once. This prevents biased estimates — for example, when younger team members would all ditto a senior developer or stay silent about their concerns to avoid confrontation. Big differences in “time bets” spark lively discussions, helping the team sync up, spot hidden risks, and pool their collective expertise.

We also break down big tasks into workable small pieces, take into account our velocity from the past few sprints, and keep tweaking estimates as we gain more information and as project dynamics change.

3. Sprint execution

Essence: the development team works on tasks from the sprint backlog to achieve the sprint goals, which are derived from the business goals. This involves coding, testing, design, and any other activities necessary to deliver potentially shippable product increments. Team members continuously communicate and collaborate to ensure that their work aligns with the desired business outcomes.

Key deliverables: functional, potentially shippable features that meet the definition of done (DoD).

Timelines: Sprint execution begins right after the sprint planning meeting and lasts for a fixed duration, typically 1 to 4 weeks, regardless of whether all planned work is finished.

During this period, the team holds 15-minute daily stand-up meetings to synchronize activities, discuss any impediments that might hinder achieving project business goals and plan for the next 24 hours. Additionally, we occasionally include weekly Kanban-style work-in-progress (WIP) meetings that last from 30 minutes to an hour to review completed tasks, identify upcoming work, and manage risks and action items.

Possible success controls: burndown chart, work item age.

Role	Involvement and responsibilities
Role Stakeholders on the client’s side	Involvement and responsibilities Generally, not involved in day-to-day activities but can provide feedback through regular touchpoints. For example, if the team has questions about how a feature should behave, the stakeholders can provide quick feedback or decisions to keep development on track.
Role Product Owner	Involvement and responsibilities Clarifies user stories and acceptance criteria (on demand). Offers guidance if priorities need adjustment mid-sprint. Provides quick feedback on completed tasks or during internal demos, often shared in stand-up meetings.
Role Scrum Master	Involvement and responsibilities Facilitates daily and weekly meetings. Tracks the team's progress. Actively identifies and eliminates obstacles that might hinder the team's progress toward sprint goals.
Role Development team	Involvement and responsibilities Self-organize to complete the sprint backlog items. Decide how best to approach the work, including task assignments and collaboration methods. Identify and flag any dependencies or potential blockers early to prevent delays. Conduct internal presentations of completed features immediately upon readiness. Seek confirmation from the Product Owner on functionalities needing changes and those ready for deployment.

4. Sprint review

Essence: assessing completed and pending tasks, demonstrating the finished work, analyzing key metrics, collecting stakeholder feedback, and revising the backlog. This review allows for feedback and ensures that the deliverables meet the business goals. It’s an opportunity to assess whether the sprint has effectively contributed to the overall project objectives.

Key deliverables:

A demonstration of the potentially shippable product increment that was developed during the sprint.
Stakeholder feedback and insights that can influence future sprints.
Updates to the product backlog based on the feedback received and any changes in priorities or requirements.
A sprint review report that summarizes what was accomplished versus planned and details any deviations and their reasons.

Timelines: A sprint review meeting for a one-month sprint is limited to 4 hours. Shorter sprints, such as two-week sprints, typically have reviews lasting 1 to 2 hours.

Possible success controls: team velocity, sprint satisfaction score (based on feedback from both the stakeholders and the development team), defect density, and escaped defects.

Role	Involvement and responsibilities
Role Stakeholders on the client’s side	Involvement and responsibilities Review the work completed during the sprint. Evaluate the current increment and provide feedback. Suggest improvements or changes required to enhance the completed work. Propose additions to future backlog items based on current observations. Discuss potential changes or new features for prioritization in upcoming sprints.
Role Product Owner	Involvement and responsibilities Evaluates the increment delivered to ensure it meets the acceptance criteria. Provides feedback for necessary changes if the work does not meet the criteria. Adjusts the product backlog based on feedback from stakeholders, reprioritizing items or adding new user stories to address identified needs or improvements.
Role Scrum Master	Involvement and responsibilities Guides the discussion through all agenda points to maintain structure and flow. Assists the Product Owner and development team in preparing for the meeting, and aid in clearly presenting the work to stakeholders. Engages stakeholders to encourage active feedback and dialogue. Clarifies any misunderstandings to ensure all participants have a clear understanding of the topics discussed.
Role Development team	Involvement and responsibilities Present the completed work increment to stakeholders, showcasing new features and improvements. Listen to stakeholder feedback and discuss any potential changes or enhancements.

Mary Zayats

Head of Business Analysis, Product Owner in Finance at ScienceSoft

Keeping eyes on the prize during reviews

To foster greater stakeholder involvement and secure more meaningful feedback, we try to showcase our work through demos that allow stakeholders to directly interact with the product. Furthermore, we sometimes conduct live end-user feedback sessions during reviews. This real-time insight is gold for keeping our product user-focused.

At times, project circumstances necessitate keeping sprint reviews internal. This often occurs during early project stages when the product isn't ready for external feedback, when stakeholders are unavailable, or when the team is developing prototypes or experimental features. In these cases, our team focuses on reflecting on the completed sprint to address technical challenges and identify process improvement opportunities in preparation for the sprint retrospectives. However, we ensure that external stakeholders remain informed by actively collecting their feedback through informal chats, structured surveys, and quick dedicated feedback sessions.

5. Sprint retrospective

Essence: evaluating the past sprint to enhance future performance. The team analyzes successes, identifies challenges, and decides on necessary adjustments to the development process for upcoming sprints. They also reflect on how effectively the team met the business goals and can adapt their processes and strategies to better align future sprints with these objectives.

Key deliverables: insights and action items that aim to improve processes and teamwork.

Timelines: a retrospective for a month-long sprint may last up to 3 hours, while a two-week sprint usually requires only 45 minutes to 1.5 hours.

Possible success controls: action item completion rate, velocity trends, technical debt levels, and team satisfaction.

Role	Involvement and responsibilities
Role Stakeholders on the client’s side	Involvement and responsibilities Typically, not directly involved, but their feedback from reviews, such as concerns about software quality, expectations for faster delivery times, or issues with software reliability, will be discussed by the team to improve processes or address issues.
Role Product Owner	Involvement and responsibilities Optional, since the focus of this meeting is on team processes and improvements rather than product-specific discussions, which are typically covered during sprint reviews. But Product Owners can participate to: Gains an understanding of challenges impacting future planning or prioritization. Provides valuable insights from business and stakeholder perspectives.
Role Scrum Master	Involvement and responsibilities Organizes and leads the retrospective, ensuring that it is productive and inclusive. Fosters an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing honest feedback about what went well and what could be improved.
Role Development team	Involvement and responsibilities Identify what went well, what didn’t, and how processes can be optimized. Make actionable commitments for future sprints to enhance productivity and collaboration.

Alex Ramasheuski

Head of .NET Development at ScienceSoft

Making retrospectives actually impactful

To keep our retrospective sessions productive, we employ formats like "Start, Stop, Continue" or 4Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For) to elicit honest and comprehensive feedback.

When it comes to turning this feedback into action points, we don’t just jot down ideas; we prioritize them and assign them to specific team members for follow-ups in subsequent sprints. This way, we can track our progress and see real improvements that benefit our projects and clients.

Although we typically conduct retrospectives after each sprint, if they start to feel like mere formalities, we may choose to reduce their frequency or hold them reactively in response to specific challenges or as the team requires. This approach keeps our retrospectives efficient, valuable, and dynamic, preventing them from becoming just a formal meeting that doesn’t contribute anything to the project.

6. Product increment release

Essence: a new, integrated version of the product is delivered to users.

Key deliverables:

A fully tested and potentially deployable product increment that meets the definition of done and is ready for release to users.
Release notes or documentation that accompany the deployment, explaining new features, fixes, and any known issues.
Any necessary training or support materials for users or customers to facilitate the adoption of the new release.

Role	Involvement and responsibilities
Role Stakeholders on the client’s side	Involvement and responsibilities Provide final approval and feedback on releases. May provide final sign-off for the release if required. May be involved in user acceptance testing (UAT) before a release. Engage with the Product Owner to discuss performance and functionality post-release. After release, provide feedback on new features or changes based on user experience.
Role Product Owner	Involvement and responsibilities Coordinates with stakeholders to plan which features or improvements will be included in the release. Reviews the completed increment to ensure it meets the acceptance criteria and definition of done. Acts as a liaison between the development team and stakeholders, gathering feedback on the increment to ensure alignment with expectations. Prepares release notes and communicates new features or changes to stakeholders and users. Ensures clear communication of the release's value proposition and changes to all relevant parties.
Role Scrum Master	Involvement and responsibilities Assists in coordinating release activities. Facilitates any necessary meetings or discussions related to the release. Helps identify and mitigate any risks associated with the release process.
Role Development team	Involvement and responsibilities Prepare the product increment for deployment, ensuring it meets all quality standards. Conduct final testing and integration to ensure a smooth release. Provide support during the release to address any issues that may arise post-deployment.

7. Backlog refinement

Essence: preparing user stories for upcoming sprints by ensuring they are well-defined, accurately estimated, prioritized, and properly sized. This activity eliminates sprint planning bottlenecks, enables the team to focus on delivering value, reduces rework, and keeps the backlog aligned with changing project goals and stakeholder requirements.

Key deliverables: a prioritized backlog, clarified and estimated user stories, the refined scope of user stories (e.g., splitting larger stories into smaller, more actionable tasks), identified dependencies between user stories, and an updated risk register.

Timelines: ongoing + optional backlog grooming sessions lasting 1–2 hours, usually once or twice per sprint.

Possible success controls: backlog health (the number of refined backlog items ready for upcoming sprints).

Role	Involvement and responsibilities
Role Stakeholders on the client’s side	Involvement and responsibilities May be involved in clarifying requirements, prioritizing features, and providing additional context or acceptance criteria.
Role Product Owner	Involvement and responsibilities Regularly reviews and updates the product backlog to align with evolving project priorities and market conditions. Gathers new requirements and feedback from stakeholders to ensure the backlog reflects current needs. Prioritizes user stories based on factors such as business value, urgency, dependencies, and stakeholder feedback. Ensures user stories have clear acceptance criteria and provides sufficient detail for the development team.
Role Scrum Master	Involvement and responsibilities Guides the team through the backlog refinement process, ensuring that everyone participates and contributes. Assists in clarifying any questions or ambiguities related to backlog items, ensuring everyone has a shared understanding. Works with the Product Owner to ensure acceptance criteria are clear and well-defined. Introduces and reinforces best practices for writing user stories and defining acceptance criteria. Helps identify dependencies between backlog items and raises awareness of any potential blockers.
Role Development team	Involvement and responsibilities Collaborate with the Product Owner to refine backlog items for clarity and better estimation. Provide estimates for backlog items. Assist in decomposing large or complex user stories into smaller, manageable tasks or sub-stories.

Mary Zayats

Head of Business Analysis, Product Owner in Finance at ScienceSoft

To effectively prioritize backlog items amidst changing requirements, we use techniques like Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF), MoSCoW, buy-a-feature prioritization, and relative ranking.

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Scrum Processes and Practices at ScienceSoft