Today marks an exciting day; the new Scrum Guide was released just this last Wednesday and marks some big, notable changes! The release of the new guide also marks Scrum turning 25 years old!
Join Dan Neumann and Sam Falco in this episode as they discuss all of the changes from the previous 2017 to the new 2020 guide; share their thoughts and key takeaways; and provide further insight on what some of these changes could mean for Scrum, Scrum teams, and Scrum Masters going forward.
Key Takeaways
Notable changes to the new 2020 Scrum Guide:
From 17 pages to 13 pages
Clarification on the daily Scrum; why you have it and what its purpose is
The statement about the immutability of Scrum went from being an endnote to being placed front and center
They’ve taken out all IT-specific language; the 2020 Scrum Guide is explicitly reaching out to an audience beyond IT and software development
“Developer” no longer means “coder”; it applies to anyone developing a solution (if you are developing a product, you are a developer)
The new language used in the guide will make it easier to teach and apply to a broader audience (such as marketing campaigns, artistic endeavors, etc.)
Doing away with two levels of teams (no more Scrum team which has a development team); it’s just a Scrum team now
All roles are within the Scrum team (i.e. the Scrum team is responsible for all product-related activities)
In the 2017 version, it spoke about potentially releasable increments but in the 2020 version, it says the increment must be useable
A greater emphasis on the fact that the Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum team’s effectiveness by enabling the Scrum team to improve its practices within the Scrum framework
Clarification around one of the ways that the Scrum Master serves the team: “by causing the removal of impediments” (vs. “removing impediments” in the 2017 vers.)
From “self-organizing team” to “self-managing team”
Commitment has taken on a greater significance: each of the three artifacts now comes with an associated commitment
Before, the commitment on the Scrum team was to the sprint goal; now, the product backlog has its own commitment (the product goal), the sprint backlog retains the sprint goal as a commitment, and the increments commitment is the definition of done
This change emphasizes the importance of a long-term vision and eliminates the previous criticism that Scrum is just about going sprint-to-sprint
Closing thoughts:
Scrum itself inspects and adapts
Jeff and Ken are hearing and listening to what people are saying about the Scrum Guide and are striving to help people understand it better
It continues to evolve at a good rate
Be sure to go read it through start-to-finish!
Mentioned in this Episode:
The 2020 Scrum Guide Launch Event
Ken Schwaber’s 2020 Scrum Guide Teaser Blog Post
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