Scrum Guide 2020: What drove the change and what’s new?
The Scrum Guide, from its conception, has been a living document which is often “scrummed” by its authors using empiricism.
“Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is observed.” – Scrum Guide, pg3
Essentially, Scrum has not changed. It is our description of Scrum that has improved through the years as its users’ feedback is further incorporated, consistently improving upon previous versions.
The 2020 drivers of Change
Recently, we have observed Scrum becoming more prescriptive as new elements were added and described, thus driving it away from its minimalistic nature. This shift, in combination with Scrum being adopted and adapted by teams outside of software and IT, created the need for a more lightweight and flexible iteration of the Scrum Guide that is more neutral in terminology, and less software specific.While the Scrum framework is conventionally understood to involve a single team (the Scrum Team, In the previous version of the Scrum Guide (2017) the Development Team was described as a separate team within the Scrum Team. This sometimes resulted in the Product Owner not feeling part of the team and in blaming the team when it was not getting stories done, instead of helping them achieve the common sprint goal. Also, Scrum’s adoption outside of the IT sector made the term Development less relevant.
With the 2020 Scrum Guide, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, addressed two of the biggest challenges the industry was facing; servant leaders who do not lead and self-organising teams which act as they please without meeting the commitments.
The changes between 2017 and 2020 Scrum Guides
- Scrum for all
- Less prescriptive
- Lean thinking
- Three commitments for the Scrum artifacts
- One Scrum Team
- Accountabilities replacing roles
- Self-managing over self-organising
- Daily Scrum
- Three sprint planning topics
- Elevating Scrum Master from a ‘Servant Leader’ to a ‘Leader Who Serves’
Scrum for all business sectors
In the past few years, teams both inside and outside of IT and Software Development, have been using Scrum. We see a lot of Marketing teams and Academic Research teams adopting and adapting to a Scrum. With its 2020 update the new Scrum Guide is now just 13 pages long, with softer and less technical language, bringing it back to its minimalistic nature.
Even Less Prescriptive
By removing prescriptive language, the 2020 version of the Guide brought Scrum back to being a minimally sufficient framework and thus made it easier for people to use. For example, the removal of the three questions in the Daily Scrum helped teams, as the questions were creating confusion to those who were not using them. The purpose here is to empower Scrum Teams and organisations who adopt Scrum, to use the Guide as a rule book and not a playbook. Having a less prescriptive approach leads to more innovation.Now Scrum Teams will be more oriented to delivering value and less to following a procedure.
Lean Thinking
Lean thinking has always been part of Scrum but was not explicitly mentioned. With this update it has now become a cornerstone of good Scrum practice. The use of Lean thinking enables the reduction of waste and in turn focuses on the essentials. Thus, through the introduction of Lean thinking teams are empowered to identify value-added-activities and reduce and/or remove non-value-added activities.
Three Commitments for the Scrum Artifacts
Scrum is easy to learn but hard to master, thus we see many organisations being disconnected between what they want to achieve and what the Scrum Teams are doing Sprint to Sprint. To overcome this challenge, the 2020 Scrum Guide assigns a new commitment to each Scrum Artifact.
- The commitment for the Product Backlog is the Product Goal
- The commitment for the Sprint Backlog, is the Sprint Goal
- The commitment for the Increment, is the Definition of Done
As the 2020 Scrum Guide states,
‘These commitments exist to reinforce empiricism and the Scrum values for the Scrum Team and their stakeholders.’
Each of the new commitments enhances “transparency and focus against which progress can be measured.”
A new introduction to the 2020 version was the commitment of the Product Backlog, i.e., the Product Goal, which will help the Scrum Team to focus on the greater valuable objective. Now, each product can have one goal, and until this is achieved you cannot define a new one.
One Scrum Team
With the removal of the Development Team in the 2020 update of the Scrum Guide, the authors tried to eliminate the concept of a separate team within the Scrum Team and the “us and them” behavior which was observed between the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the Developers. Thus, we now have one team focused on the same objective and on delivering value. This is supported and enabled through the introduction of the three accountabilities which describe how all team members work together and what is expected from them. This change will be greatly helpful for all teams outside of IT and software, i.e., in operations, sales, marketing, legal, finance, etc.
Accountabilities replacing roles
In the 2020 iteration of the Scrum Guide the word “roles” has been replaced with the word “accountabilities”, as it is more helpful for the users of Scrum and helps eliminate any confusion between roles and job titles, which might not reflect the accountabilities.“The entire Scrum Team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint. Scrum defines three specific accountabilities within the Scrum Team: the Developers, the Product Owner, and the Scrum Master”
The three accountabilities describe how all team members will work together to deliver value while being focused on the same objective.
Self-Managing over Self-Organising
As mentioned above, one of the major challenges the industry faced was self-organising teams who were not meeting their commitments. Previously, Scrum teams were self-organised, meaning they were responsible for choosing who performed the work and how. Now, through self-management, Scrum teams are also responsible on what they will work on, who will do it, and when and how it will get done.“They are also self-managing, meaning they internally decide who does what, when, and how.”
With this change, Sutherland and Schwaber want to highlight that the Scrum team plans, structures and monitors its work, its processes and its progress independently while it pursues a common goal which goes beyond product development and is aligned with the corporate strategy. In a nutshell, the team self-manages to deliver on the commitments and to meet the goals.
Daily Scrum
The purpose of the Daily Scrum remains the same, i.e. to inspect the progress made towards the Sprint Goal and to adapt and replan the Sprint Backlog when and where needed. What is new in the 2020 version of the Scrum Guide, is the removal of the three questions to make it less prescriptive and to help people who used Scrum across industries. Thus, the Daily Scrum now has a less prescriptive description.“The Developers can select whatever structure and techniques they want, as long as their Daily Scrum focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal and produces an actionable plan for the next day of work. This creates focus and improves self-management.”
Teams across the globe will continue to gather for their 15-minute Daily Scrum, without the limitation of the three questions and with the freedom to adapt it so that they can achieve its purpose.
Three Sprint Planning Topics
The 2020 Scrum Guide, together with the topics of “What” and “How” also introduces a new topic, “Why”, which refers to the Sprint Goal. With focusing only on “What” and “How” the Scrum Team was not able to get the full picture, they also needed to understand the “Why”, which is what encouraged the authors’ decision to include it in the new iteration of the Scrum Guide.
Topic One: Why is this Sprint valuable?
“The Product Owner proposes how the product could increase its value and utility in the current Sprint. The whole Scrum Team then collaborates to define a Sprint Goal that communicates why the Sprint is valuable to stakeholders.”
Having a discussion around the “Why”, helps the team add context that might otherwise have been lacking and justify the Sprint, as each Sprint is an investment.
Elevating Scrum Master from A ‘Servant Leader’ To ‘Leader Who Serves’
The other major challenge addressed by Sutherland and Schwaber in the 2020 version of the Scrum Guide was Servant Leadership, which created servant leaders who did not lead. This created a situation where 58% of Agile teams could not deliver, according to Standish Group data on millions of projects. Now, the Scrum master is a leader who serves, and this change addresses the issue in question and also clarifies the description and the accountabilities of the Scrum Master, as it aims to empower the role to embrace more leadership.