Scrum Guide update just in time for Scrum's 25th birthday
Proof again: Scrum is nothing "new" or short-lived - on the contrary. 25 years ago, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland published the Scrum Guide published.
It is a simple framework that allows teams to start working on complex problems .
Scrum remains Scrum - but some things have changed with the update. Here are the most important things from our point of view:
The new Scrum Guide has been shortened
The following points, for example, have been removed or shortened:
- 3 questions in the Daily Scrum. Development teams now often meet after the Daily Scrum.
- There are mandatory attributes of a Product Backlog item.
There are the 8 elements of the Sprint Review.
- The detailed reasons for conducting the sprint retrospective are given.
- A recommendation on how much capacity the refinement usually requires from the development team.
- It shows how the achievement of targets in the product backlog can be monitored.
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Further changes to the Scrum Guide
The Scrum team becomes ONE team
The Development Team is essential for Scrum - and should no longer be seen separately. The Development Team role has become "Developer": there is now only ONE Scrum Team, which consists of a Scrum Master, a Product Owner and Developers.
From the vision to the product goal
To help Scrum teams focus on a goal, the Product Goal was introduced in the Scrum Guide 2020. It also describes WHY and FOR WHAT purpose the product is being developed.
The Product Goal can serve as a target for the Scrum Team to plan its future work. Each sprint should bring the product closer to the product goal. It also helps the Scrum team to make the progress of its work on the product backlog visible and measurable.
The artifacts contain a commitment
In the new Scrum Guide 2020, the artifacts have been given a commitment:
For the product backlog, it is the product goal
For the sprint backlog, it is the sprint goal
For the increment, it is the Definition of Done
The commitments describe the artifacts and thus provide clarity about the purpose, context and value of the artifact. They improve transparency and provide a way to measure progress against this artifact.
Sprint Planning
Sprint planning now also answers the question of why.
The Scrum Team asks itself the following questions in Sprint Planning:
Which product backlog items can be completed in the sprint and how the selected work can be completed, now also the question of why this sprint is valuable for the stakeholders.
Scrum teams manage themselves
In the 2017 Scrum Guide, the Development Team is described as self-organizing, meaning that the Development Team independently determines who and how the work should be done. The Scrum Guide 2020 emphasizes that the Scrum Team as a whole manages itself.
"The Scrum team is responsible for all product-related activities ranging from stakeholder collaboration, review, maintenance, operations, experimentation, research and development, and any other activities required." - Scrum Guide 2020
Download Scrum Guide
He describes Scrum for what it is: a minimal framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions to complex problems. The Scrum Guide 2020 can be downloaded here.
