Dynamic Insights
Developing the best LMS on the market with Scrum
BY LISA WELCH
26 OCTOBER 21
At Dynamic, we are constantly developing the Dynamic LMS to be the best on the market. Using Scrum for LMS development, we expand its functionality to provide a diverse platform for our clients. But what is Scrum and how do we use it for effective LMS development?
Scrum is a project management methodology. We use it to ensure that we can develop functionality without obstacles. The Scrum Master protects their development team from other project noise, which allows focus on creating the world’s best LMS platform for business.
Developing the best LMS using sprints
We carry out development in sprints. Sprints are short periods of development which aim to provide a deployable product. By dividing the development into sprints we ensure continuous development and allow the team to focus on the right areas.
All of the requirements of the product are written into a product backlog – these requirements are called stories and are used within each sprint. The development team provide time estimates on each of the stories to allow for sprint planning.
Throughout the sprint, we hold several ceremonies. These events provide clear communication between the development team, project manager and product owner. The ceremonies include:
- Sprint planning. The whole team discusses the stories (work) required to ensure we understand the brief clearly, prior to starting development. During this, the development team commits to completing the sprint work. Consequently, the amount of work included must be realistic and achievable within the available time.
- Daily Scrum (Stand-up). We hold a daily meeting to allow the team to update everyone on their progress. From this meeting, we glean what each team member did yesterday, what they are doing today, and if they need to raise any issues with the team.
- Sprint review. At the end of the sprint, the team gets together with the product owner. This is where we demonstrate and discuss the work completed within the sprint. This process provides a platform for continual feedback of the functionality and helps us pick up issues early. We take on board any feedback from the product owner and discuss new stories we need to pick up in future sprints.
- Sprint retrospective. This ceremony ensures the team evaluates the previous sprint, thinking about what went well and what could be improved. This way the team learns from any mistakes and ensures they are not repeated in future sprints.
Testing the best LMS for online learning
It’s not just about creating the best LMS on the market. It needs to be the best learning management system for any organisation, So, throughout the Scrum process, testing is continuously performed. Particularly vital, the testing process ensures that the product delivered and deployed is stable and meets all requirements.
Maintaining the logic
During each sprint, as we develop each story, we put it through a code review. This is the first stage of testing. And it ensures the code is written in a logical manner with no obvious issues. Afterward, the story goes to a tester for manual testing. Running through a set of test scripts, we ensure the functionality works as intended and no issues are present. Any issues are reported and picked up before the story can be marked as done.
At the end of the sprint, we create the functionality and place it on a development environment for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) by the product owner.
Each sprint should create a potentially shippable product. So, once accepted by the product owner, the functionality is deployed to the production site. This process continues for each sprint until the completion of the product.
Managing the project through JIRA
At Dynamic, we use Atlassian JIRA software to manage our development projects. With JIRA, we can see the whole project and track its progress instantly.
JIRA holds all of the stories for the project in a backlog with clear estimates of time on each story. Consequently, this makes planning sprints easy. That’s because the Scrum Master can see how long each story should take and can place the correct amount of work into each sprint.
Keep on track
We track sprint progress on the sprint board. This displays what functionality is in development, what testing has been done and if any issues need resolving. It provides a clear view of progress and allows the Scrum Master to see if the sprint is on track.
JIRA provides a Sprint Burndown Chart. Here we can see the amount of work left to do versus time. These help predict whether the sprint is on track and when it will likely be completed.
Delivering an LMS for business
In our experience, clients tend to ask, ‘What’s the best LMS for my business?’ They expect it to be free of bugs, up to date and packed full of new features. Scrum is the tool our development team use to help us meet and exceed those expectations.
If you would like to find out more about Scrum, the Scrum.org website provides further detailed information on the process.
If you want to know more about the dynamicLMS. and how it can help your team achieve more, get in touch today.
FEATURED CASE STUDY
Transforming a fashion giant's LMS
Dynamic partnered with River Island to create RIVA, a fully tailored version of DynamicLMS. The fashion retailer’s vision was to establish a unique River Island brand through extensive customisation options and use of the LMS platform’s powerful dashboard tools. A separate video streaming service is used to deliver extensive video training to staff. Employees can now access on-demand video content whenever they need it, alongside formal digital training and compliance courses.
