How Scrum Changes with the Scrum Guide 2020
The new scrum guide was released on 18th November! Let’s see the changes on the Scrum Guide.
The Scrum Guide 2020 is available now: Change is coming to make Scrum more accessible and inclusive beyond software development.
The below points are taken from my reading of the 2020 Scrum Guide, the speeches, resources, and interviews at the launch event, which included pieces from Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber (co-creators of the Scrum Guide) as well my own experience as an agile practitioner.
TL; DR:
The Scrum Guide Reordered is based on about 90 percent of the text of the 2017 Scrum Guide, extending its original structure by adding additional categories. For example, you will find all quotes that can be attributed to the role of the Scrum Master in one place. While the Scrum Guide is mainly focused on the three roles, five events, and three artifacts
The Product Backlog items are no longer estimated but sized, the Scrum Master is no longer removing impediments, but is now “causing the removal of impediments.” Moreover, the “Why is this Sprint valuable?” question has become a part of the Sprint Planning.
Ken Schwaber and Dr. Jeff Sutherland Update the Scrum Guide on the 25th Anniversary of the Scrum Framework.
1. The new Scrum guide is shorter (from 17 to 13 pages) and less prescriptive
If less is more then this Scrum guide is more than the last one, being considerably shorter. Over the years, the Scrum Guide started getting a bit more prescriptive. The 2020 version aims to bring Scrum back to being a minimally sufficient framework. This was achieved by removing the Daily Scrum questions “three questions” are now gone entirely, softening language around PBI attributes and retro items in Sprint Backlog, shortening the Sprint cancellation section, and much more.
2. The word “lean” makes its debut in the new guide
“Scrum is founded on empiricism and lean thinking” is the first sentence in the “Scrum Theory” section. When discussing this Jeff Sutherland the original 1986 HBR article The New New Product Development Game by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, and their connection to Japanese Lean culture. This is a big topic — for more on Lean generally take a look at the post Lean in a nutshell.
3. A Home for Sprint Goal, Definition of Done, and Product Goal, the three artifacts now have three corresponding commitments.
The previous guide had sprint goal as a mention, but not linked specifically to an event or artifact and Definition of Done was the single entry under an ‘Artifact Transparency’ section. This rather clumsy structure has been cleaned up, with the three artifacts each having a corresponding commitment
- Product Backlog has a new commitment Product Goal (more on this in the next section)
- Sprint Backlog has the commitment of the Sprint Goal
- The Increment has the commitment of the Definition of Done
4. No more references to roles — replaced by accountabilities
The word role does not appear at all in this new guide. Instead each of Scrum Master, Product Owner and Development Team have accountabilities. For more on the “roles as hats” concept see the blog Team Roles — not what they used to be.
5. Self-Managing over Self-Organizing
Previous Scrum Guides referred to Development Teams (team members who are working on the sprint increment) as self-organizing, choosing who and how to do work. With more of a focus on the Scrum Team, the 2020 version emphasizes a self-managing Scrum Team, that chooses who, how, and what to work on.
The focus on the Scrum Team: “The Scrum Team is responsible for all product-related activities from stakeholder collaboration, verification, maintenance, operation, experimentation, research and development, and anything else that might be required.” (This holistic approach was overdue; the Scrum team wins, the Scrum team loses — there are no factions within the Scrum Team but shared responsibility to create value for the customers. This strengthened team idea is also reflected in the point that the Scrum Team is now self-managing than (merely) “self-organizing.”)
6. Scrum master accountabilities introduced; the Scrum Master is now accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness
The role of the Scrum Master has had a serious upgrade and according to the 2020 guide, this role is one of a true leader and is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness. No longer a servant leader the Scrum Master is now a leader who serves.
7. Three Sprint Planning Topics
In addition to the Sprint Planning topics of “What” and “How,” the 2020 Scrum Guide places emphasis on a third topic, “Why” This third topic refers to the Sprint Goal.
Scrum Guide Launch Event, Celebrating 25 years of Scrum
“The #scrumguide2020 is just a document. Scrum is not the goal, the goal is to build awesome products.”
It exists to help people and teams solve complex problems. And because those problems and their solutions tend to be highly unpredictable, they do well to work in small incremental steps towards a clear and valuable goal, using each increment to check if they’re still moving in the right direction. That’s all, really. And the new Scrum Guide brings that home even better than earlier iterations.
The Scrum hasn’t changed, they just found a better way to describe it and it got lighter, clearer, and more tightly coupled.
I hope that the new Scrum Guide will encourage discussions and that the changes inspire you all to improve your use of Scrum, solve complex problems, and deliver more valuable outcomes.
What is your opinion on the Scrum Guide 2020? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
