| Course | MT247 Agile and Scrum Methodologies |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 1 |
| Paper type | Discussion board post |
| Length | About 460 words, 2 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 discussion post |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT247 Unit 1
Five Scrum Names on Five Old Habits: Unit 1 Discussion on a Team That Renamed Its Meetings
MT247 · Unit 1 Discussion Board Post
Posted by [Student Name]
Larkspur Residential, its app team, the people and the classmates are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
Initial Post
I test the resident app at Larkspur Residential, a property management company. Our team adopted Scrum last year, and on paper we do everything. In practice, here is what five of our Scrum names mean.
Daily Scrum: a forty-minute status meeting where each developer reports to the development manager.
Product Backlog: a spreadsheet sorted by the date each request arrived.
Sprint: two weeks whose contents change whenever the vice president of operations sends an email.
Sprint Review: a slide deck presented to executives, with no working software and no residents' feedback.
Sprint Retrospective: held for the first six Sprints, then dropped because nothing changed.
My claim is that we run a traditional, manager-directed project and call its parts by Scrum's names. West (2011) described this pattern as water-scrum-fall: planning and release stay as they were, and only the middle is relabeled. That fits us exactly.
The Scrum Guide gives each event a purpose, and ours serve a different one. The Guide gives the Daily Scrum to the Developers, fifteen minutes to check how the Sprint Goal is going and replan their next day (Schwaber & Sutherland, 2020); ours exists so a manager can hear status. The Product Backlog is meant to be ordered by the Product Owner for value; ours is ordered by arrival. A Sprint is meant to protect a goal from change; ours protects nothing. The Review is meant to inspect the product with stakeholders and adapt the backlog; ours reports progress upward. The Retrospective is meant to improve how the team works, and ours stopped because its actions were never done.
We kept every meeting Scrum names and dropped every reason Scrum gives for holding them.
If I could change one thing first, it would not be adding a meeting. It would be letting the Developers run the Daily Scrum themselves, for fifteen minutes, around the Sprint Goal. That costs nothing and makes the other gaps visible. What would you change first on your team?
Reply to Kenji
Kenji, your team's backlog is ordered by the product owner, which sounds better than ours, but you said she reorders it every Monday after the director's meeting. Is that ordering hers, or the director's under her name?
Reply to Alicia
Alicia, I agree that your standups work because they stay short. I wonder whether short is enough: do your developers change their plan after the standup, or just report and leave? Ours used to be short too, before they became status meetings.
References
Schwaber, K., & Sutherland, J. (2020). The Scrum guide. https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
West, D. (2011). Water-scrum-fall is the reality of agile for most organizations today. Forrester Research.
MT247 Unit 1 instructions, in plain terms
The opening discussion in MT 247 asks students to describe a team that says it uses an agile framework and to judge whether it really does. Choose a team you know well, at work, school or a volunteer group, and set each named practice beside what actually happens. The strongest posts take the purpose of each event or artifact from the Scrum Guide or the course text and show where practice departs from it. Make a clear claim, then support it with specific examples rather than general complaints. Finish by naming a single first change and the reason it comes before the others. Keep the first post near 300 to 450 words with sources in APA 7, and later answer two classmates with a question about how their own team works.
How this MT247 Unit 1 example is built
The post opens by naming the writer's role and the company, then lists five pairs of Scrum name and real practice. The claim follows, that the team runs a traditional project with new labels, tied to West's term water-scrum-fall. A paragraph then sets each event's purpose, as the 2020 Guide states it, beside what the team uses it for, from the Daily Scrum to the dropped Retrospective. The highlighted line says the team kept every meeting and dropped every reason for them. The closing paragraph chooses a Developer-run, fifteen-minute Daily Scrum as the first change, because it costs nothing and exposes the other gaps, and asks classmates what they would change. Replies ask Kenji whose ordering his backlog reflects and Alicia whether her short standups change anyone's plan.
Where the points sit in the MT247 Unit 1 rubric
An agile discussion post earns most of its credit for evidence that ties named practices to their stated purposes. Saying a team is not really agile is easy; showing, event by event, what each meeting is for and what it is used for instead is what instructors reward. Accurate use of the Scrum Guide's terms, such as Developers, Sprint Goal and Product Owner, shows the reading was done. A single, justified first change demonstrates judgment, especially when the writer explains why adding a meeting would not help. Replies count when they question a classmate's example with a specific point. Citations in APA 7 and timely posting carry the remainder, and a closing question to classmates helps the thread.
MT247 Unit 1 help from the desk
The commonest weakness is a post that criticizes a team for not being agile without saying what agile would require. Another is mixing Scrum with practices the Guide does not include, such as story points, and treating them as rules. Some posts list problems without a claim that ties them together. Others recommend sweeping change, such as reorganizing the department, when a small first step would be more credible. In replies, avoid simple agreement. Describe your team's meetings and how they run, and a writer will set each one beside its stated purpose and suggest where to start.
Get an MT247 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Pick a team you have worked on or beside that uses agile language, and note what each renamed meeting actually does and who speaks in it. Send those notes along with the board prompt for Unit 1, its reply rules and the rubric. A first post is free, back inside 24-48h, naming nobody and disguising the company. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More MT247 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
- MT247 Unit 2: Framework Explanation
- MT247 Unit 3: Role Analysis
- MT247 Unit 4: Backlog Ordering Exercise
- MT247 Unit 5: Estimation Exercise
- MT247 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- MT247 Unit 7: Sprint Planning Artifact
- MT247 Unit 8: Impediment Analysis
- MT247 Unit 9: Retrospective Design
- MT247 Unit 10: Adoption Assessment
- MT246 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- MT245 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- MT243 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- MT242 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
MT247 Unit 1 questions, answered
Can the post criticize a team I currently work on?
Yes, if it stays factual and fair. Describe behavior rather than motives, name people by role, and strip out details classmates could use to recognize the company. The example uses a composite property management company and never suggests the development manager acts in bad faith; his habits are treated as the old process continuing under new names.
Does the Scrum Guide still require the three Daily Scrum questions?
No. The 2020 edition removed them; the Developers may use any structure that keeps the Daily Scrum focused on progress toward the Sprint Goal and produces a plan for the next day of work. Many teams still use the three questions, which is fine. Presenting them as mandatory, though, dates a paper, and graders who know the current Guide tend to notice.
What is water-scrum-fall?
A term from Dave West's 2011 Forrester report for organizations that keep upfront, sequential planning and infrequent release, with Scrum iterations sitting between them. The development work looks agile while decisions and delivery remain traditional. The example uses it because the team plans a year ahead and releases quarterly, so its two-week Sprints change very little about when residents see anything new.
Where can I find a free MT247 Unit 1 sample paper?
You can read the full MT247 Unit 1 discussion board post here. It lists five Scrum practices a property company's app team renamed without changing, compares each with its purpose and replies to two classmates.
What change does the MT247 Unit 1 sample recommend first?
Letting the Developers run a fifteen-minute Daily Scrum around the Sprint Goal, instead of a forty-minute status report to the manager. It costs nothing and makes the team's other gaps visible.