Scrum is a framework for agile project management of growing interest in different application fields, to assimilate its principles and practices conceptual training is not enough, a hands-on approach is needed to allow excercising it through “learning by doing”. In this work we analyze a workshop experience which simulates the application of Scrum in a project of limited scope mediated by ICT with a distributed team. The conceptual foundations of the different elements that converge in this case are presented: the project-based learning methodology, the distributed teamwork and the Scrum framework. Following by a case study of the experience developed extracting a pedagogical pattern that allows to identify the key elements to its success in order to facilitate its replication. The result of this analysis will assess the potential for transfering this type of learning to other situations with different objectives but with the same need for team interaction and distributed context, at the same time to perceive Scrum potential to be incorporated into a project-based learning teaching strategy, for its simplicity and its important effects on team learning and development of key competencies.

1. PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE OF SCRUM THROUGH
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING MEDIATED BY ICT
IN A DISTRIBUTED TEAM
Master Thesis
Author: Sergio Yazyi
Tutor: Prof. Dr. Francisco García Peñalvo
MASTER ICT IN EDUCATION
Academic Course 2010/2011

2. CONTENTS
● INTRODUCTION
● CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
● CASE STUDY
● PEDAGOGICAL PATTERN
● CONCLUSIONS

3. INTRODUCTION

4. INTRODUCTION:
MOTIVATION FOR THE RESEARCH
● Appreciate the value of project-based learning in ICT
enhanced environments.
● Reveal the educational benefits of agile methods.
● Improve the efficency, efficacy and effectiveness in
teams.
● Focus collaborative work from a distributed team
perspective.
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5. INTRODUCTION:
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
● Analyse a project-based learning experience, carried
out on-line, with a distributed team, using Scrum
framework.
● Conceptually describe the elements that converge
around the experience.
● Extract a pedagogical pattern that serves as a model
of practice suitable for being replicated.
● Establish further research perspectives derived from
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this work.
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6. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

7. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
KEY CONCEPTS
▪ Characteristics
Project-based ▪ ICT role
▪ Challenges
learning ▪ Benefits
▪ Characteristics
Distributed ▪ Principles
▪ ICT role Scrum ▪ Roles
▪ Challenges Teams ▪ Artifacts
▪ Benefits ▪ Meetings
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8. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
Characteristics
● Active learning strategy central to the curriculum.
● Based on addressing key issues, authentic and from
the real world.
● Involve students and gives them a wide degree of
autonomy in their development.
● Oriented to the development of concrete and
meaningful products.
● Promoting the acquisition of knowledge, skills and
attitudes.
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9. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
Benefits Challenges
▪ Improve students motivation. ▪ New teacher role: facilitator and
advisor.
▪ Preparation for professional
work and life. ▪ Demand management and
design skills.
▪ Development of key skills and
socio-emotional competencies. ▪ Preparation and implementation
effort.
▪ Foster collaborative work.
▪ Difficulties in the assessment
▪ Appreciate the importance of process.
different disciplines and
subjects. ▪ Demand new skills and attitudes
both from teachers and from
▪ Practical/functional integration
students.
of technology.
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10. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
Characteristics
● Technology-mediated collaboration and
communication.
● Team members distributed across one or several
dimensions: temporal, physical and relational.
● Work is conditioned by the degree of task
interdependence.
● Synchronous or asynchronous communication.
● Specific processes in selection, socialization and
leadership.
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11. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
Benefits Challenges
▪ Overcoming physical and ▪ Mediated communication.
temporal limitations.
▪ Lack of team "visibility", fuzzy
▪ Remote talents mix. identity.
▪ Cost reductions. ▪ Obstacles to building trust (both
for action and for relationship).
▪ More options to reach work and
personal life balance. ▪ Demand "subtle control" : more
influence than control.
▪ Providing greater autonomy to
members. ▪ Requires autonomous individual
skills like self-discipline and time
▪ Contributes to innovation and
management.
synergy through complementarity
and diversity of skills. ▪ Need of adequate attitudes:
commitment, respect,
perseverance and sincerity.
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12. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
SCRUM: IN 200 WORDS
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13. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
SCRUM: CHARACTERISTICS
● A framework. Set of principles and practices.
● Iterative product development.
● Short work cycles.
● Self-managed team with high level of interaction.
● Continuous contact with the customer/end-user.
● Close follow-up (daily). Advance visibility.
● Complete deliverable/product (Increment).
● Continuous improvement of teamwork process.
● Sustainable: rhythm, continuity and focus on value.
● Receptiveness to change. Flexibility and adaptability.
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14. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:
SCRUM: ROLES, ARTIFACTS AND MEETINGS
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15. CASE STUDY

16. CASE STUDY:
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1 How to develop an experiential training in Scrum and
exercise agile principles in a virtual environment with a
distributed team?
2 How to implement collaborative learning online based on
agile methods allowing to obtain the benefits from project-
based learning combined with this types of methodologies?
3 How Scrum can benefit project-based learning as a
framework within the pedagogical strategy?
4 What are the key elements that can be obtained from the
experience that allow to reproduce it successfully?
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17. CASE STUDY:
RESEARCH APPROACH
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18. CASE STUDY:
RESEARCH OBJECT AND CONTEXT
▪ Objectives
▪ Tasks
▪ Planning
▪ Resources
▪ Scrum
▪ PBL
▪ Coordination
▪ Virtual team
▪ Follow-up
▪ Facilitation
▪ Support
▪ Feedback
▪ Skype
▪ Google Docs
▪ Professionals ▪ Google Wave
▪ Experienced ▪ Gmail
▪ Committed ▪ Moodle
▪ Homogeneity
▪ Continuous learning
▪ Practice experience
▪ Principles / practices
▪ Virtual environment
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19. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP APPROACH
General description
● The simulated project consisted in the development of a
promotional brochure for a training course of a
hipothetical company.
Based on the requirements presented by the workshop tutor
acting like a fictional customer, the team should represent the
part of a group of professionals of a company specialized in
advertising design, to take care of the proposal, draft and
production of the promotional brochure according to the
customer specifications. Managing the development process
using the Scrum framework.
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20. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP APPROACH
Objectives
● Participate actively in the group experiencing the different stages
in the development of the product, following the practices of the
Scrum framework, including:
● Negotiate and analyze customer requirements, defining the priority and
business value in each case.
● Estimate collaboratively the efforts required for each task.
● Breakdown the requirements ("user stories") in the different tasks needed to
accomplish a satisfactory product.
● Contribute in the prioritization and allocation of the tasks according to the skills
and workload of each team member.
● Communicate effectively among team members to complete the tasks properly
and on time.
● Conduct retrospectives, meetings where each work cycle is analyzed critically
to propose improvements to the processes.
● Participate in short and daily follow-up meetings, focused on sharing advances,
and early detect and resolve impediments.
● Acquire fluency in the use of technologies (ICT) for synchronous and
asynchronous communication and collaborative work.
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21. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP APPROACH
Contents
● The main contents included in the syllabus design cover the
principles and practices of Scrum framework applied to the
context of the work proposed:
● Roles and responsibilities in a project: differentiation of the product owner, the
scrum master and the development team.
● User stories estimation, prioritization and breakdown in tasks, allocation an
coordination of execution.
● Follow-up, review and retrospective meetings.
● Appropiate attitudes for teamwork in a distributed context, codes of conduct
(netiquette) and active participation in meetings in a constructive and cordial
way.
Transversal contents emerge, like exercising skills in the use of technologies
(ICT) involved like:
● effective collaborative work (Google Spreadsheet, Presentation, Moodle, etc.),
● synchronous communication (chat, conferencia, etc), y
● asynchronous communication (email, foros, etc.)
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22. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP APPROACH
Planning and schedule
● A detailed work program of 10-days was established, with
dedication of one hour per day, indicating the key days for joint
meetings, and for reviewing project deliverables
1. A familiarization period with the activities and requiered times.
2. Three events, in each one the different phases of a work cycle (sprint) are
simulated:
○ meeting with the customer (product owner),
○ cost and effort estimation,
○ planification and allocation of tasks,
○ execution and recording of progress,
○ delivery of intermediate products (increments) and final release,
○ retrospective analysis of each sprint.
3. Meeting for assesment and evaluation of the complete workshop.
4. Participation in the discussion forums to share experiences, suggestions
and conclusions.
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23. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP APPROACH
Technical and material resources
● Participants are instructed about the technical requirements to
perform the activities properly.
● Share an e-mail address to be able to communicate with the rest
of the participants.
● Having access to broadband Internet to participate in meetings
as teleconferences (audio only).
● Being familiarized, having the needed software installed and
active accounts in Skype y Google Docs services.
● Having available an hour a day during the 10 days of the
workshop.
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24. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP APPROACH
Assesment
● The following evaluation criteria and requirements for
accreditation were established:
● active participation in all activities of the project,
● having no complaints from the group for lack of
participation or non-compliance with committed tasks,
● respect for the defined time slots for each activity,
● participation, at least collectively through a
representative, in the forums for conclusions and
assesment of the experience.
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25. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT
Participants profile
● Young and/or experienced professionals.
Interested in project management training, particularly in agile
methods for its potential transfer to their professional field.
● High level of commitment and responsibility.
The risk of concurrence with working / life demands is balanced
through a low planned workload of the workshop to be compatible
with other activities. Except for three defined events, key to the
development of the simulation, the rest of the activities can be
performed asynchronously.
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26. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT
Profile of the analyzed team members
● Composed of five (5) professionals with experience in project
management.
● Geographically distributed within Spain territory.
● Some of them had previous experience with Scrum in co-located teams.
● High level of commitment to the activity.
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27. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT
The first iteration
● The initial requirement from the customer (product owner) was
specified in the OpenKnowledge training platform (Moodle based)
and the team was notified through its forums.
● Because the team realized late of the close deadline and did not
manage to meet synchronously, the team decided to start working
asynchronously using e-mail.
● To achieve a better work dynamic the team proposed to use the
functionalities of Google Wave. Thanks to this technology the first
deliverable was ready on time and satisfying the requirements. For
some of the team members it was the first time using that tool.
● The obstacles that were overcome in this first stage were the subject of
the first retrospective.
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28. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT
The second and third iteration
● Subsequent meetings were carried out synchronously using Skype
and Google Docs for collaborative work in a very effective way,
allowing the members to know each other better, clarify doubts and
make decisions quicker.
● The scrum master role was assigned by the team, and some specialized work roles
were also identified (layout, graphic design, printing, mailing and activity record) to
facilitate the allocation of tasks and work organization.
● Analysis of the user stories was carried out with the product owner (customer) and
the team, determining value, estimating cost/effort, and then planning and allocation
of tasks was decided by the team independently.
● Then the execution phase was held jointly and collaboratively, where the interaction
was more intense and action-oriented within the time constraints.
● Finally, the retrospective was held at each stage, recording progress visually using a
shared spreadsheet.
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29. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT
Positive highlights
● The level of proactivity and commitment of the members facilitated the
spontaneously coordinated action, focused on the outcome and sticking to
the time limits.
● Task allocation was done in very natural way, well balanced and without
conflict.
● From one sprint to another different issues were addressed and improved
raised in the retrospectives (team learning).
● More tools than the ones proposed were incorporated, learned and
applied according the better fit in each situation.
● Working together with the product owner allowed to focus on the aspects
of the highest value.
● Low level of "bureaucracy", most of the time was devoted to development
activities.
● The focus on "how" things are done and the continuous self-analysis of
the team to improve it.
● The experience of self-organization in a new group with members at the
same level.
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30. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT
Challenges found
● Keep in mind the schedule and key delivery dates.
● Control the time spent in planning/estimation avoiding dispersion.
● Last-minute changes on the deliverable.
● Achieve an appropriate balance between quality and effort, avoiding
perfectionism.
● Control the time spent in meetings to avoid delays.
● Adapting to new tools requires additional effort.
● The lack of face-to-face contact leads to lose some nuances of
communication that must be compensated with a higher virtual
interaction, particularly among those who did not know each other
previously.
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31. CASE STUDY:
ROLE OF ICT
▪ Training platform Open Knowledge ▪ Asynchronous communication
(syllabus design and forums)
http://www.scrummanager.net/ok
▪ Synchronous communication
(multi-conference)
▪ Sprint backlog
▪ Product
(increment)
▪ "Burndown" chart
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32. CASE STUDY:
WORKSHOP CONCLUSIONS
● The simulated experience allowed to properly experiment in small scale the
different aspects of the Scrum framework.
● Additionally skills related to collaboration and communication online were
exercised.
● The tutoring feedback allowed to appreciate the importance of commitment and
proactivity in achieveing coordination and self-managed teamwork.
● The lack of previous relationship among members needed a greater initial
communication to compensate the absence of face-to-face interaction.
● ICT have an esential role in efectivity of communication and collaboration in a
distributed team, but are not enough.
● With commitment all obstacles can be overcome but there's no tool that
generates commitment.
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33. PEDAGOGICAL PATTERNS

34. PEDAGOGICAL PATTERN:
CONTEXT, PROBLEM AND SOLUTION
Context Solution
▪ Selected students. ▪ Planification and schedule: detailed, accurate and
▪ Geographically distributed. accesible.
▪ Homogeneous team. ▪ Synchronous meeting with all team members.
▪ Time availability. ▪ Clear and well defined allocation of time.
▪ Basic knowledge on the framework. ▪ Limited participation of the tutor adjusted to the
▪ ICT access and skills. role assumed, facilitating self-management.
▪ Simulation of several complete work cycles
("sprints").
▪ Recording activities: achievements, constraints,
Problem impediments and solutions.
▪ Exercise an agile method (Scrum) in a Consequences:
distributed team. ▪ Encouraged initiative, autonomy, shared responsibility and
▪ Facilitate assimilation and experience of collaboration.
▪ Obstacles arise early, accelerate cycle conflict-agreement-
the agile principles. commitment.
▪ Reflection and continuous improvement promotes self-
Forces: esteem and increases cohesion.
▪ ICT mediated communication
▪ limited time available Limitations:
▪ lack of previous relationship ▪ Tutoring time demand, ICT skills, and low level of
▪ level of commitment commitment can hinder coordination.
▪ expectations regarding results
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35. PEDAGOGICAL PATTERN:
WORKSHOP DIAGRAM
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36. PEDAGOGICAL PATTERN:
PATTERN IN ACTION
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37. CONCLUSIONS

38. CONCLUSIONS:
RESULTS FROM THE EXPERIENCE
● Practical training in project management in a virtual environment
with a distributed team is feasible, and the pedagogical pattern
exposed captures the central elements emerged in this experience.
- Potencial to develop key skills/transversal competencies.
- ICT enhanced context allows to overcome different limitations.
- Simulations and learning that can be transfered to everyday work and life situations.
● Scrum framework within a project-based learning strategy can
benefit both the organization of the activity and the monitoring and
value of the experience.
- Principles and practices for teamwork: iterative, autonomous and adaptative.
- Critical reflection and continuous improvement. Scrum master as a facilitator/catalyst.
- Scrum can be used itself as a pedagogical pattern.
● Role of ICT as platform for social interaction and collaboration.
- Development of a social and personal learning environment.
- Learning tools motivated by the concrete need, natural and functional introduction.
- Technology "sharing": selection criteria and proper application of tools.
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39. CONCLUSIONS:
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES
● Relationship between tutoring and scrum master roles. Potential
for teachers training on PBL.
- The scrum master role as management skills training.
- Potential to exercise PBL skills though workshops like the one presented.
● Opportunity to foster multi-cultural and inter-disciplinary teams
development.
- Distributed teamwork allows to design experiences of this type.
- Explore the possibilities of more dispersed teams and with more heterogeneity.
- Study implications of different communication alternatives.
● Best practices documentation through pedagogical patterns and
pattern languages.
- Potential to share practices and compare results and strategies.
- Documentation and comparison of experiences based in the same approach.
- Scrum as a pedagogical pattern within PBL, both for on-line and off-line learning.
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40. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

41. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
An special acknowledgement to Scrum Manager
community in particular to Claudia Ruata and Juan Palacio
for giving me the opportunity to participate in their
experience and to conduct the case study presented here.
http://www.scrummanager.net
And also special thanks to the rest of the
Scrum simulation team:
Leo Antoli, Javi Sanchez,
Eduardo Ferro Aldama
and Iago Fernández Bugallo
The complete work summarized in this presentation can be
found in GREDOS, the Documental Open Repository under the identifier:
http://hdl.handle.net/10366/100082
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.
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