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Sprints & Scrum

How to use Bricks to practice Scrum for Architecture & construction projects
Scrum is the more popular agile method and is a good starting point to experience agile. I suggest you to read the following article, where we describe and compare 3 agile methodologies : Scrum vs Kanban vs Scrumban.
You can find an updated documentation about Scrum in the official scrum guide updated in 2020.
Now how to set it up practically in Bricks? Here is a step-by-step guide to achieve this goal.

1/ List the topics you will need to work on it the next weeks.

A list of topics that needs to be done
In Scrum a piece of work that bring value to the client, that can be presented and get feedbacks is called "User stories".
In Bricks, you can create "Topics" to talk about element to discuss or to design in a project.
Create a topic for each "User stories" you need to work on

2/ Add the topic a detailed description

The goal of topic description is to give your team co-workers enough details to start working on the task and finish it within the sprint.
In scrum a user story must be ready before to start a sprint. That means having clarified with all people involved the task what needs to be done and having already gathered the necessary input data. Indeed, if there are some uncertainties on what needs to be done, the estimation can't be accurate and the scope of the sprint is not clear enough.
Add a description to a topic to make sure your co-workers will have enough information

3/ Add topic tasks

To better grasp the work needed to perform a task like designing a roof, it is necessary to split the tasks in sub-tasks. Don't fear to be too precise. It always good to have a global view of what needs to be done even the most concrete steps
Define tasks to perform a topic

4/ Estimate the topics of your sprint

With a precise topic description as well as a list of sub-tasks, you could normally have a better view on the time needed to perform this task. Here come in play a new way to estimates tasks, that scrum methodology introduced. You could read more about estimating user stories with points in this blog post. Scrum force us not to estimate user stories with hours spent, but rather with a system of points that use Fibonacci suite (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21....)! It may seem to you odd if you are not familiar with agile methods, but this system bring many advantages :
  • As it is a bit abstract, project manager won't blame you if you spent more time than expected and you could be a bit more relax to promise something
  • As it is less precise, and estimation is by definition imprecise, we can exaggerate difference between tasks and clearly distinguish between small tasks and large issues that may span during months
  • It's funny after all, like a poker game, by the way estimating session are called poker planning!
Scrum way to estimate tasks use a special suite of numbers : Fibonacci suite!
In Bricks, you can save an estimation using Fibonacci suite on each topic. To do planning poker or simply estimate with your team, you can use external tools, your hands 🖐️, or an agile poker planning game if you wish.
Save estimation of topics in Bricks

5/ Create a sprint

To create a sprint, go to the Roadmap page and select Add a sprint option from the stage.
Input the sprint details and click the Submit button.
Want to learn more in creating a sprint? Click here.

6/ Fill your sprint with topics

To choose a sprint for your topics, go to the List page. Select a single or multiple topics then click the edit icon.
Choose the your sprint from the Sprint select list and click the Save button.
Edit Topic Properties
To see all the topics on your sprint, you can simply navigate to Roadmap page and click on the sprint card.
List of topics on the sprint

7/ Follow sprint advancement with Kanban board

To view and edit your topic properties easily, you can do it with Kanban board. Just navigate to the Board page and select Sprint in Board Type. Then, you can simply drag and drop your topics to change their sprints.
Sprint kanban board

8/ Close the sprint

To close an active sprint, navigate to Roadmap page. You can either hover on your sprint card or hover on your sprint from left menu and click on the menu options (three dots), then select End sprint.
Note that the End sprint option will only appear if your sprint status is set as Started.
Select End sprint
If your sprint has unfinished topics you'll be asked to move them to any future sprints. Should you wish to move them, simply tick the checkbox Move unfinished topics to a next sprint. Then, click on the Validate button to end the sprint.