Let's talk about the new Scrum Guide

On Nov.18, 2020, a new and modified version of the Scrum Guide was released by co-creators Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. I was able to attend the release event on line with nearly 20,000 other Scrum professionals from around the world. The release was part of the celebrations of the 25th birthday of Scrum. I am taking this opportunity to share with you important changes in the new version of the Scrum Guide.

I believe the most important change is the introduction of the Product Goal. It is a totally new term in the new Scrum Guide. The Product Goal is part of the Product Backlog. It is a commitment for the Product Backlog to provide additional quality in improving transparency and focus. Each Sprint should bring the product closer to the overall Product Goal. The relationship between the Product Goal and Product Backlog is similar to the relationship between the Sprint Goal and Sprint Backlog. The Product Owner is accountable for it. It also should be noted that the word ‘accountable’ is used more consistently here. 

Another big change is that the role formerly known as ‘Development Team’ has been changed to ‘Developers’. The intention is to put emphasis on one team that consists of a group of people working together as a team on a product. That team has 3 different roles with different accountabilities; Developers, Product Owner and Scrum Master. The purpose of just using one team (Scrum Team) is to eliminate the concept of another sub team within a team. This is was done to counter the situation that could potentially occur with the previous terminology, ‘that has led to ‘proxy’ or ‘us and them’ behavior between the Product Owner and Development Team’ (Scrum.org). Another modification in terminology is that self-organizing has been changed to self-managing in regards to the structure of the Developers. The self-organizing ‘development team’ described, in the 2017 Scrum Guide, chooses how to do work and who will do it. The self-managing ‘Scrum Team’, in the new Scrum Guide, chooses what to work on, when and how as well as who. Based on the new Guide, typically a Scrum Team consists of 10 or fewer people.

Another major change is there are now three topics considered for the Sprint Planning event. In addition to the what and how from the 2017 Scrum Guide, the new Scrum Guide adds why as a formal part of the Sprint Planning. This was done so that it will encourage the Scrum Team to think about the value being delivered by the increment.

Another difference is, in general, the new Scrum Guide is less prescriptive in many aspects. One good example of this is the three questions usually used during the Daily Scrum have been removed. There has also been an overall attempt to simplify the language in the Guide. The new Scrum Guide is more clear and concise making it easier to read and understand. For example, the whole section of ‘Cancelling a Sprint’ has been reduced from four paragraphs to two sentences. The direct result of this is that the number of pages in the Scrum Guide has been reduced from 19 to 13. To show the diverse possible applications of the framework of Scrum, all I.T. specific language has been removed. The motivation for this has been a recognition that there should be a focus on product development of many types, not just software.

There have been several other changes in the details in the Scrum Guide. One is the term servant-leader has been removed and Scrum Masters are now called the true leaders to serve the Scrum Team and organization. Another example would be the purpose of each event has been clarified and the way to implement them is set out in a less detailed and proscriptive manner.

To me, even though there are a lot of changes in the new Scrum Guide, Scrum remains Scrum. It is still that lightweight framework. The new version is more convenient and accessible so people can use the Scrum framework in complex contexts more effectively. Of course there will be a transition time to adapt to the new version. If we want to get to that goal more quickly, we should read and start to use the new Scrum Guide as soon as possible. (All assessments will still be based on the 2017 Scrum Guide through January 9th, 2021).

In the near future you can expect another blog post called “Let’s talk about the new Scrum Guide in detail”. It will be a detailed comparison of the new Scrum Guide and the 2017 Scrum Guide.