IScrum: An Improved Scrum Process Model

Abstract

Resolving a wide domain of issues and offering a variety of benefits to software engineering, makes the Agile process models attractive for researchers. Scrum has been recognized as one of the most promising and successfully adopted agile process models at software industry. The reason behind vast recognition is its contribution towards increased productivity, improved collaboration, quick response to fluctuating market needs and faster delivery of quality product. Though Scrum performs better for small projects but there are certain challenges that practitioners encounter while implementing it. Experts have made some efforts to adapt the Scrum in a way that could remove those drawbacks and limitations, however, no single effort addresses all the issues. This paper is intended to present a tailored version of Scrum aimed at improving documentation, team's performance, and visibility of work, testing, and maintenance. The proposed model involves adapting and innovating the traditional Scrum practices and roles to overcome the problems while preserving the integrity and simplicity of the model.

Full text

I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 8, 16-24
Published Online August 2017 in MECS (http://www.mecs-press.org/)
DOI: 10.5815/ijmecs.2017.08.03
Copyright © 2017 MECS I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 8, 16-24
IScrum: An Improved Scrum Process Model
Sara Ashraf, Shabib Aftab
Department of Computer Science, Virtual University of Pakistan
Email: sara22.ashraf@gmail.com, shabib.aftab@gmail.com
Received: 27 May 2017; Accepted: 18 June 2017; Published: 08 August 2017
Abstract—Resolving a wide domain of issues and
offering a variety of benefits to software engineering,
makes the Agile process models attractive for researchers.
Scrum has been recognized as one of the most promising
and successfully adopted agile process models at software
industry. The reason behind vast recognition is its
contribution towards increased productivity, improved
collaboration, quick response to fluctuating market needs
and faster delivery of quality product. Though Scrum
performs better for small projects but there are certain
challenges that practitioners encounter while
implementing it. Experts have made some efforts to adapt
the Scrum in a way that could remove those drawbacks
and limitations, however, no single effort addresses all
the issues. This paper is intended to present a tailored
version of Scrum aimed at improving documentation,
team’s performance, and visibility of work, testing, and
maintenance. The proposed model involves adapting and
innovating the traditional Scrum practices and roles to
overcome the problems while preserving the integrity and
simplicity of the model.
Index Terms—Scrum, Improved Scrum, Tailored Scrum,
Customized Scrum, Agile Model, Software Process
Improvement
I. INTRODUCTION
Scrum is a light-weight software development
framework embodies adaptive, evolutionary, and
cooperative attributes [23] [24]. Abrahamsson [24]
defines Scrum as a project management approach proven
effective for co-located and small development teams.
For managing complex and dynamic software projects,
Scrum acquainted with the concept of empirical process
control. Keeping in view the empirical reality of the
project, the plans are consistently inspected and adapted
[25]. According to Alliance [27], 62% of the projects
employing Scrum have been delivered successfully.
Agile Scrum has minimized the overall software
development time [26]. It is a customer-centered and
value-driven approach, therefore, it embraces changing
demands of customers to achieve their satisfaction and
involvement.
Scrum focuses on project management, for
circumstances where planning is troublesome initially,
the principle component, the feedback-loops are used as
tool for empiric process control. Scrum is employed
through three key roles: product owner, scrum master and
development team. The product is created by a self-
organizing and cross-functional team in short-term stages
called sprints (usually of 2 to 4 weeks). Each sprint
begins with a sprint planning meeting and closes with
retrospective evaluation. Product owner maintains a
product backlog i.e. a list of prioritized features that must
be implemented. The development team chooses which
tasks are to be executed in the following sprint and
develops a sprint backlog. Daily Scrum is a stand-up
meeting of about 15 minutes, conducted at the start of the
day to coordinate the team activities. While Scrum master
tackles issues that might cause hindrances for the Scrum
team. To acquire feedback, potentially shippable product
is presented in sprint review meeting. A retrospective
meeting is held at the end of sprint, for evaluation of
process and its improvement [29] [30] [41]. The Scrum
process model overview can be seen in Fig. 1.
Scrum works well for project management but has
certain limitations in technical engineering aspect. There
are a number of such weak areas in Scrum, a few of them
are being discussed here in the following.
We have to learn principles and values of Scrum, not
only the practices [34]. Many problems arise due to the
reason that Scrum team is not Scrum trained [31]. Scrum
certification and training is recommended by 32%, while
11% of the members of the organizations need them for
effective implementation of Scrum, since it has
significantly improved the process and practices of Scrum
[35] [36]. If product owner and customer are not scrum
trained that may cause project failure. The development is
driven mainly by product owner so if he is not well
trained, it might lead the development team to a wrong
track [32].
There is a lack of documentation in Scrum. Sprints are
too short to manage time for a strict formal
documentation along with accomplishment of other sprint
tasks. It has been found that Product backlog is not
updated properly as most of the requests for change in
requirements are received directly through emails and
phone calls; that may lead to traceability concerns later.
Different team members are documenting that may result
in lack of standardization and increase in bug rate [37]
[38].

IScrum: An Improved Scrum Process Model 17
Copyright © 2017 MECS I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 8, 16-24
Fig.1. Scrum process overview [30]
During sprint, changes cannot be made. No customer
or product owner intervention is allowed during sprint.
Lack of visibility of work is also encountered in Scrum.
(1) It is hard to perceive what alternate groups are doing
at any given time, multiple tasks are running in parallel,
which makes it hard to know who is doing what
undertaking; (2) a considerable measure of undertaking
functionalities are not in a state of coherence since
conditions from different groups are not unique; and (3)
there is not much time for everyone in the team to
experience all tasks and request data about their assigned
task inside and outside the group [33].
The quality of software might suffer due to inadequate
communication between development team and QA
engineers. Moreover, there is lack of explicit Regression
testing in Scrum, reason is again lean practices. Also
during a sprint, the code written should be debugged and
tested.
It is difficult to implement Scrum model in
maintenance area. Since, maintenance can’t be sorted out
into sprints; and involves separation of tasks rather than
their interaction and a common goal like in development
phase. Maintenance groups regularly work with various
clients who are far from site, and rarely communicate
face-to-face [28].
Rest of the paper is structured as: Section II covers
contemporary researcher’s work to evolve the Scrum or
to integrate it with other software models. Section III
defines the problem statement. Section IV includes the
proposed model. And, Section V concludes the paper.
II. RELATED WORK
Keeping in view the strengths and weaknesses, the
researchers keep on experimenting with the Scrum. Some
introduced new practices and new roles in it, some have
evolved the existing one while others have integrated
other software process models with it.
Sharma and Hasteer [1] reviewed the literature and
analyzed the current state of Scrum during past five years
(i.e. 2010-2015) in terms of popularity, adoption, and
evolution. They referred to survey reports and reviewed
thirty papers published during this period. They found
that the researchers and software industry are more
inclined towards integration and adoption of Scrum
respectively as compared to any other software process
models.
Larusdottir et al. [2] and [39] proposed to incorporate
the user-centered systems design (UCSD) activities and
practices with Scrum to improve collaboration with users,
users experience and usability throughout the software
development. Gupta et al. [3] have transformed the
Scrum by integrating some of the innovative practices
into it. They studied the globally distributed product and
analyzed the impact of evolved practices on code quality,
cost, product early reach to market, and scaling up of new
users.
Wangenheim et al. [4] explored the benefits of
teaching Scrum in academic institution for undergraduate
program. They developed a simulated learning game
intended to develop the skill and experience among the
participating students. The authors established that
education of Scrum is vital for improving collaboration
among teams, cohesiveness, and their productivity.
Jha et al. [5] implemented a hybrid model in which
they integrated waterfall model with traditional Scrum as
well as proposed some practices to beat the challenges
confronted during implementation of hybrid model.
Park et al. [6] proposed a mechanism to structure the
practices of Scrum model. They discussed how Scrum
practices can be expressed using Essence kernel and
language that is accepted as a standard for making and
endorsing software engineering methods by Object
Management Group.
Darwish and Megahed [7] proposed how Requirements
Engineering (RE) practices and techniques can be fused
into Scrum, and also discussed the challenges
encountered in this regard. There is no mechanism or tool
in Scrum that can assure process conformance through
concrete feedback, to deal with this challenge
Matthies et al. [8] presented a tool ScrumLint that
analyses the development artifacts. According to the
authors the feedback collected through such tool can
improve the workflows and overall process measurement.

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Table 1. Summary of the related work
Title
Limitations
A Comprehensive Study on State of Scrum Development
[1].
Reviewed the research of evolving Scrum but not analyzed the work based on
integrating Scrum with other software process models.
A license to kill–Improving UCSD in Agile development
[2].
The proposed guidelines are too generic and don’t specify how to employ them.
Providing no practical implications.
Pragmatic Scrum Transformation: Challenges, Practices
& Impacts During the Journey A case study in a multi-
location legacy software product development team [3].
Proposed model lacks the practices for improving the visibility of tasks to the
management. No way to deal with issues arising during sprint. Furthermore, the
practices for improving team performance are also neglected.
SCRUMIA—An educational game for teaching SCRUM
in computing courses [4].
Results of the assessments lack generality, hence are applied to a restricted
domain (courses by a single instructor within same university).
Scaling Agile Scrum Software Development: Providing
Agility and Quality to Platform Development by
Reducing Time to Market [5].
Though have better results for large and distributed projects but not optimal for
small projects.
Scrum powered by Essence [6].
No practical evidence is provided to analyze the results, the graphical
representation of work at each stage of process may increase documentation
overhead.
Requirements Engineering in Scrum Framework [7].
The paper doesn’t address how to resolve the issues that arise during RE phases
when applied in Scrum.
ScrumLint: Identifying Violations of Agile Practices
Using Development Artifacts [8].
The tool is implemented in controlled environment with limited performance
measuring parameters and metrics.
Enhancements in scum framework using extreme
Programming practices [9].
The proposed model is not tested and validated in real practical settings.
An experience in blending the Traditional and Agile
methodologies to assist in a small software development
project [10].
The blended approach increased the time required for planning and testing. Also,
do not provide the evidence for applying with diversity of teams.
Towards an Agile Requirements Engineering Process
Combining HERMES 5 and SCRUM [11].
The combined approach solves RE problems but drops the agility in this phase
while dealing with complex projects.
An integrated document management system for
managing self programme accreditation using Scrum
approach [12].
For academic quality assurance system, support for document management is
quite limited.
A Synchronous Agile Framework Proposal Combining
Scrum and TDD [13].
The proposed model needs to be validated in industry for confirming the claimed
benefits.
It does not address the team composition and structure. Tools and techniques for
testing are also not specified.
A Hybrid Agile model using SCRUM and Feature
Driven Development [14].
The model SCR-FDD is validated only with a single controlled setting, large-
scale implementation is required to justify the potential.
Software Quality Assurance in Scrum: The need for
concrete guidance on SQA strategies in meeting user
expectations [15].
Recommended techniques and training may increase overhead and complexity for
organization.
Hybrid fuzzy-ontological project framework of a team
work simulation system [16].
The applicability of the given model can be assessed accurately only if the whole
SPSM design process is first closed. Data for team members’ selection was not
provided.
Agile for large scale projects—A hybrid approach [17].
For deployment phases, better approaches are desirable. Range of implementation
is limited, validated in a single organization.
Scrum and Embedded Software Development for the
Automotive Industry [18].
No experimental evidence that could support the said approach in real product
development project.
ScrumS: a model for safe agile development [19].
Involves documentation overhead and intensive testing to test security. Scrum
team training with modified infra-structure is pre-requisite.
Review-Scrum (R-Scrum) Introduction of Model Driven
Architecture (MDA) in Agile methodology [20].
Risk factor is not mitigated, testing process requires further refinement.
Scrum lacks engineering practices that is why
researchers are motivated to incorporate such practices
from other models. Ramadan [9] presented an Enhanced
Scum framework by combining the best practices of XP
into Scrum. The author elaborated the framework with a
comprehensive set of guidelines for accomplishing each
activity of traditional Scrum starting from preparing
product backlog to delivering an increment and sprint
retrospective. Also, elaborated how to incorporate the
selected XP practices and validated through a survey.
Singhto and Denwattana [10] implemented a hybrid
model, a blend of traditional waterfall model and agile
Scrum for a small software development project. They
achieved success in terms of user satisfaction, meeting
deadlines and timely delivery. It also solved poor design
problems. Schar at al. [11] implemented a combination of
HERMES 5 a sequential process model and the Agile
Scrum model with the principle focus on requirements
engineering. The Scrum process model lacks explicit
security practices.

IScrum: An Improved Scrum Process Model 19
Copyright © 2017 MECS I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 8, 16-24
Mokhtar et al. [12] evolved the Scrum with the
emphasis on reducing duplication and redundancy of
documents so that during the audit, desired document can
be searched in minimum time. They implemented this
model for developing an online integrated document
management system.
Maria et al. [13] proposed a synchronous framework
integrating the Scrum and TDD by merging a series of
good practices of Scrum for team management and some
features of TDD regarding development and testing. This
model involves incorporating management team of
Scrum throughout the software process and the TDD
team that develops the lines of code and tests them while
ensuring feedback all the way thereby, increasing quality
of both process and product.
Tirumala et al. [14] presented a hybrid model SCR-
FDD, a combination of Scrum and FDD aimed at
improving quality and time for development. Since the
FDD model is more inclined towards achieving quality
but not meeting deadlines in most of the cases. On the
other hand, Scrum is more focus on strict time line than
the quality. Keeping in view these facts, the SCR-FDD
starts with identification of features and then modules
comprising of multiple features are developed iteratively.
The authors validated the model by implementing FDD,
Scrum, and SCR-FDD in a real-time project with three
small teams.
Khalane and Tanner [15] revealed SQA aspects in
Scrum by presenting theory building case study. They
found that it is the organization that decides how to
customize development processes.
Orlowski et al. [16] proposed a hybrid fuzzy-
ontological system for developing software process
simulation-modeling SPSM system. Scrum model
including project roles and management processes are all
simulated by SPSM.
Tanveer [17] proposed a hybrid model combining the
best practices of RUP with Scrum to overcome the
weaknesses of both models and to improve the
predictability, communication, and management.
Takahira et al. [18] integrated V methodologies into
Scrum framework for rapid development of embedded
software in automotive industry. The Scrum process
model lacks explicit security practices.
The Scrum process model lacks explicit security
practices. Maria et al. [19] presented a model for safe
agile development by adding specific security techniques
to the conventional Scrum lifecycle without affecting its
originality and mapped the Risk Analysis method.
Iqbal and Javed [20] proposed a Model Driven
Architecture MDA in Scrum and named it as Review-
Scrum. This model helps resolving issue like lack of
pictorial representation of work and risk handling. It is
evident that no single work embraces all the major
problem areas of maintenance, team performance,
documentation, testing and work visualization during
Sprint. Table 1 shows summary of related work
highlighting the limitations.
III. PROBLEM DEFINITION
Scrum’s project management practices strongly
advocate its application in projects with increasing
complexity, but as far as its engineering areas are
concerned, practices are not explicitly stated in the
process model.
As discussed in Section II, researchers have been
evolving the Scrum in different ways to cope up the
challenges confronted while applying it for the projects
varying in size and complexity. It is observed that all
such efforts that have been made revolve around one or
two problem areas at a time. However, there is no single
solution that can cover most of the key problem areas
simultaneously. Also, customizing Scrum may involve
the risk of no longer adhering to the values, practices, and
principles of the methodology ensued losing the integrity.
Hence, the research question is:
How to tailor the Scrum framework to improve
documentation, team’s performance, visibility of work
during a sprint, testing, and maintenance while preserving
the integrity and simplicity of Scrum?
IV. THE PROPOSED ISCRUM PROCESS MODEL
The proposed IScrum model is intended to deliver a
high-quality software in minimum time for small to
medium sized projects with co-located teams.
The proposed model adapts the traditional Scrum by
tailoring the practices involved in requirements
engineering. Also introducing a role of Technical Writer
for appropriate documentation. Moreover, Scrum
Master’s role is customized to analyze the Stakeholder
and team, also to conduct the training.
Firstly, we need to establish an infrastructure for
Scrum to execute the process in full spirit. It encompasses
identification of phases, events, roles and also the
practices involved to undergo them. The improved
process model includes the core components of
traditional Scrum i.e. Product Backlog development,
Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint
Retrospective except Scrum Training. Also, the major
roles remain same including Scrum Master, Product
Owner, and the Team except for Technical Writer a new
addition in Scrum Team. The ceremonies of traditional
Scrum are performed in a way not violating its ambiance
but with a little tweak to the practices to overcome the
impediments.
There are several activities and events in the presented
model, their workflow is shown in Fig. 2.

20 IScrum: An Improved Scrum Process Model
Copyright © 2017 MECS I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 8, 16-24
Fig. 2. IScrum process model
A. Preliminary stakeholders’ Analysis
Product Owner is the representative of customers and
users of the product. According to Scrum, Product Owner
is solely responsible for requirements management.
Project requirements usually cover a number of aspects
e.g. functional, technical, and business. There are no such
criteria defined for requirements content in Scrum.
Therefore, it is a challenging task for the Product Owner
to cover all dimensions of requirements efficiently.
Furthermore, the Product Owner has to play two
important roles of Business Analyst and Functional
Analyst. Business Analyst is the one who imparts
requirements i.e. what the business organization wants to
achieve from the users of this product. The Functional
Analyst divulges the requirements pertaining to what
functionality customer desires from the product.
For that Product Owner should have a knowhow of
such delicacies. Here, a preliminary analysis of Product
Owner is necessary for two reasons:
Firstly, to evaluate that what level of training is
required to the Product Owner for advancing through the
process efficiently.
Secondly, to understand the nature of the upcoming
project for planning and designing the task force and
other resources.
B. Team Formation
Taken into account the nature of the project (its size
and complexity), constraints (time and cost), available
tools and technology and also the human resources a team
will be designed having all the needed skill set. Here, a
team member will play a new role of Technical Writer.
The team size will be chosen according to the Scrum
rules.
C. Scrum Training
Next step, after organizing team and analysis of
Product Owner, is conducting training sessions. This
training can be of two types: the Scrum Training and the
Technical Skill training. Former is mandatory while latter
can be conducted if required. An external resource person
can be hired for Scrum training if feasible. Otherwise,
only Train the Scrum Master first and then he can provide
the Scrum training to the rest of the team by conducting
in-house training sessions.
As all the events in Scrum are strictly time-boxed, so is
the training practice. Training sessions can be of 04 hours
per day for 2-3 days.
D. Role of Technical Writer
Technical Writer can be presented as an integral player
in the Scrum team to meet the challenge of insufficient
documentation. He goes along with the process starting
from the project planning all the way to Sprint
retrospective and even after shipping the product to the
maintenance.
For example, Technical Writer will take part in Sprint
Planning for identifying stories and tasks that need
further documentation. He may write test suites that will
serve as technical documentation. Technical Writer will
stay in touch with the developers and testers throughout
the Sprint to achieve the team’s collaboration over those
deliverables that they are going to develop during the
iteration.
E. Role of Quality Assurance QA Engineer
It has been found that QA engineer lags one Sprint
behind because he has to wait for the release for testing.
Role of QA engineer in Scrum team remains same but the
practice is adapted in such a way that QA personnel
remain engaged with the developers’ team throughout the
Sprint and they mutually decide the internal release. This
release may comprise of half the features built and
developers hand over the QA for testing. So that when the
external release is ready the QA would need less time for
testing. QA Engineer will also review the test results and
test coverage for evaluating their adequacy. Also he
would monitor the progress of testing with continuous
feedback daily. During Sprint QA member would be

IScrum: An Improved Scrum Process Model 21
Copyright © 2017 MECS I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 8, 16-24
involved throughout the development, thereby reducing
the time for testing and ensuring the quality as he will be
more informed about product.
F. Role of Scrum Master
The Scrum Master will play the same role as is in
traditional Scrum except with the added responsibility of
Scrum training to the team. He will hold in-house training
sessions for Scrum Team.
G. Workshop for Product Backlog grooming
Arrange a workshop where the Product Owner,
customers and other stakeholders together with Scrum
Master and Technical Writer generate the Product vision,
identify business needs, and decide high-level release
timelines while grooming the product backlog in parallel.
Both the customers and the team have a close
collaboration that may lead to building mutual trust.
H. Documentation
Scrum doesn’t ask for either more comprehensive or
no documentation. According to Cockburn & Highsmith
[22], they are the people who drive agile projects, if they
are co-located then they do their best, moreover, their
collaboration and face-to-face communication largely
replace document preparation and dissemination.
Keeping in view this fact, the researchers typically go for
intensive communication to fill the gap caused due to
reduced documentation. But here we need to keep the
balance between communication and documentation.
Documentation practices of traditional Scrum will not
be completely rejected rather improved. In order to have
effective and adequate documentation, we need to decide
first that what and when to document, for that following
criteria are being proposed here.
The documentation will be done only if:
a) There is no or little chance of having discussion.
b) It clearly imparts the immediate goal of the project.
c) That document can be turned into executable
specifications i.e. requirement, architecture, and
design specifications in the form of tests.
d) That item/ concept/ requirement is stable.
e) That is required to the customer.
f) It is industry regulation or contractual obligation
During the Product Backlog grooming workshop,
requirements analysis, their specification, and other
technical documentation will be done by Technical
Writer following the above-mentioned criteria. In the
subsequent stages of Sprint planning and executing the
Sprint, Technical Writer will document whatever values
for the team and customers. Code will be as much self-
documenting as possible.
I. Standup meeting at the end of the day
Unlike traditional Daily Scrum that is held at the start
of the day, it is suggested to hold this meeting at the end
of the working day. All the formalities for the meeting
like time duration and place will remain same as are in
traditional Scrum. Each individual in the team will
answer the two questions:
a) What he/she has accomplished today?
b) Any impediment?
After this, the tasks till next standup meeting will be
re-planned such that in case of any impediment or bug
that task is set to top priority. All the work in progress
and not done yet will be made visible on a task board.
This way each member of the team will be accountable
for his /her task accomplishment. Also, it keeps everyone
on task and collaborating.
J. Testing
By using tests, 1) requirements, architecture, and
design can be specified, and 2) our work can be validated.
QA personnel will involve throughout the Sprint will
perform early product acceptance tests.
Regression testing will be performed at the end of each
Sprint by testers to ensure that new features developed in
the current Sprint have not generated any unwanted
effects or changed the previously developed functionality
a.k.a. ripple effects in the entire product developed so far.
White box testing will be performed by QA engineers if
required.
It is suggested to use test suits that may or may not be
platform dependent and should be completely automated
with minimal human intervention needed. It will reduce
the cost both in terms of human effort and time. Hence,
improve the quality of the product.
K. Visibility of work during a sprint
Active participation of customers in projects is
desirable hence it lets them control the project. They
acknowledge if they are updated and development work
is visible to them [21]. The work is not visible during
sprint to the stakeholders. For this, it is recommended to
put all work that the team has to do in the Product
backlog. This way the team’s work will be made visible.
Though, all the planned work is available in the product
backlog still there are various unplanned items crawling
into the Sprint and originating from different directions; it
may be a manager, in some cases a Product owner, and
sometimes from corporate-side. Place all the work in
Product Backlog to make it visible and transparent,
however, try not to interrupt the teams so that they can
better achieve their Sprint goal without losing their focus.
The most upsetting thing for a team is new/changing
requirements appearing amid a Sprint. In order to deal
with them, some criteria can be set such that a new or
change in requirement can only be allowed to a Sprint if:
a) All requirements/tasks from the Sprint are done.
b) It is a Priority item/critical for our users, or a
kind of blocker.
Teams do not need any other Key Performance
Indicator (KPI) rather they can better determine their

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performance patterns through visualizing their progress
using some Time-in-Process Chart.
L. Maintenance
In order to improve the product quality, configuration
management and defect management are crucial [40]. For
keeping track of defects that may appear in last Sprint
Release, use a defect-wallet on the task board. It will
serve the purpose of defects logging. Initially, the defect-
wallet will contain no subtasks, but only some points
assigned. In this way, it is ensured that even the task of
fixing a defect is also included in the Sprint backlog with
values assigned to it. In some cases, the product backlog
can also be updated, if required. The scope of the Sprint
can easily be updated to the Product Owner, in case it is
being affected, the team can protect the Sprint goal. It
would not only help keeping track of time but also ensure
that team is conforming the burndown. This is how
maintenance tasks and the development both run in
parallel.
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The proposed model adheres to the principles and
values of original Scrum while retaining its simplicity.
The presented model is expected to improve the team
performance and produce the quality product. Scrum
team’s training will help improving the team performance.
By introducing the role of Technical Writer, unified and
quality documentation can be accomplished. It would
help reducing traceability concerns. Also, the issue of
inadequate documentation will be resolved. Visibility of
work during Sprint will help improving customer’s trust.
The QA’s interaction throughout the Sprint may lead to
enhanced product quality. Automated testing will reduce
time and effort, and maintenance will be a parallel part of
the product development Sprint.
For future, it is intended to refine the model by
validating it for different practical settings. Furthermore,
the domain of research will be expanded by adding other
problem areas of Scrum.
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Authors’ Profiles
Sara Ashraf is student of MS Computer Science with
specialization in Software Engineering at Virtual University of
Pakistan. Her areas of interest include Software Process
Improvement and Agile Software Development.
Shabib Aftab is working as a Lecturer
in Computer Science Department,
Virtual University of Pakistan. He got
his MS degree in Computer Science
from ‘COMSATS Institute of
Information Technology, Lahore.
Previously he has completed M.Sc
Information Technology from ‘Punjab
University College of Information
Technology (PUCIT), Lahore. His areas of research are Data
Mining and Software Process Improvement.

24 IScrum: An Improved Scrum Process Model
Copyright © 2017 MECS I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 8, 16-24
How to cite this paper: Sara Ashraf, Shabib Aftab,"IScrum: An Improved Scrum Process Model", International
Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science(IJMECS), Vol.9, No.8, pp.16-24, 2017.DOI:
10.5815/ijmecs.2017.08.03