This article explains the workflow processes in DevOps, focusing on managing work items and utilizing various process templates for effective project management.
Managing work items effectively in DevOps is essential for delivering high-quality software on time. Jira acts as your project’s central hub, providing a real-time view of progress, priorities, and blockers. Teams can collaborate directly on work items, update statuses, and link tasks to code, builds, and releases—all in one place.
In a typical Agile Scrum setup, work moves through a few clear stages during every sprint.
Backlog grooming is where the Product Owner collects new requirements, user stories, and bug fixes, then prioritizes them so the most important work comes first.
Next comes sprint planning, where the team picks the stories for the sprint, sets a goal, and estimates how much effort each task will take.
During development and testing, developers build the features while testers verify everything works as expected.
Plan and track work with Scrum processes
You build a project plan by creating a backlog of work items that represent features, requirements, user stories, or other work. Track bugs, tasks, and blocking issues using the Bug, Task, and Impediment work item types. To support portfolio management, create features and epics to roll up PBIs across teams.
**
What is Scrum?**
Scrum is a framework for developing and sustaining complex products. This Guide contains the definition of Scrum. This definition consists of Scrum’s accountabilities, events, artifacts, and the rules that bind them together. Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland developed Scrum; the Scrum Guide is written and provided by them. Together, they stand behind the Scrum Guide.
**
How Work Flows in an Agile Scrum Sprint**
When I started learning Scrum, one of the first things I wanted to understand was how work actually moves inside a sprint. It turns out that each sprint follows a simple but structured flow, and every stage has a clear purpose.
Let’s break it down step by step.
- Backlog Grooming (Refinement)
This is where everything begins.
The Product Owner collects:
- New requirements
- User stories
- Bug fixes
- Improvements
All these items go into the product backlog.
Then they are prioritized, so the most valuable or urgent work is at the top.
This step ensures the team always knows what matters most.
- Sprint Planning
Once the backlog is ready, the team moves into sprint planning.
During this meeting:
- The team selects stories from the backlog
- Defines the sprint goal
- Estimates the effort required for each story
By the end of sprint planning, the team has a clear plan for the sprint.
- Development and Testing
This is the main working phase of the sprint.
- Developers build the features.
- Testers validate the functionality.
- The team meets daily in stand-up meetings to:
- Share progress
- Discuss blockers
- Stay aligned
This keeps communication open and helps solve issues quickly.
- Sprint Review and Retrospective
At the end of the sprint, the team holds two important meetings.
- Sprint Review
- The team demonstrates completed work.
- Stakeholders give feedback.
- The product direction may be adjusted if needed.
- Sprint Retrospective
- The team reflects on the sprint.
Discusses:
What went well
- What could be improved
- Decides small actions for the next sprint.
- This is how teams continuously improve.
- Final Thoughts
A Scrum sprint isn’t just about building features.
It’s a cycle of planning, building, reviewing, and improving.
When each stage is followed properly, the team stays aligned, work becomes predictable, and improvements happen naturally with every sprint.
P.S. This post is part of the DevOps Micro Internship (DMI) Cohort-2 by Pravin Mishra. You can start your DevOps journey by joining this Discord community (https://lnkd.in/dZEzMSUR).
Image credits: https://kodekloud.com
Further readings:
https://scrumguides.org/
https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/AZ-400/Configure-Activity-Traceability-and-Flow-of-Work/Flow-of-Work-SCRUM/page
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