Recap: Webinar Introducing the New Scrum Guide-EN

Yesterday, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, the creators of Scrum, presented new version of the official Scrum Guide™ via webinar to almost 1,000 attendees. With the last update released in 2013, the changes presented yesterday are concentrated in a new section: Scrum Values.

They shared the updates in a discussion format by answering questions that were previously submitted by Scrum practitioners from around the world.

They began with a short introduction to explain what led them to create and publish the first Scrum Guide. And also confessed that they honestly did not expect the enormous expansion that Scrum has had in the last 20 years. Laughing, they explained that in the beginning they went to various companies to explain Scrum and try to apply it. The feedback they received was: “This will never work.” and “This is just a California dream.” Guess how got the last laugh? Currently there are thousands of companies around the world using Scrum. Steve Denning, from Forbes magazine, even proposes that they should be nominated for a Nobel Prize in Management (if such a category existed).

Later in the webinar, they went on to explain the updates to this version in detail. The 5 Scrum values ​​have been explicitly added: Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness, and Respect.

• Commitment: Personally, commit to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team.
• Focus: Everyone on the team focuses on the work in the Sprint and the goals of the Sprint Team.
• Openness: The Scrum Team and its stakeholders agree to be open about all the work and the challenges in performing the work.
• Respect: Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people.
• Courage: Scrum Team members have the courage to do the right thing and work through tough problems.

These values ​​already existed within Scrum, although outside of the official guide. After feedback received by the community, the authors decided to incorporate a new section of two paragraphs that read in full:

“When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and build trust for everyone. The Scrum Team members learn and explore those values as they work with the Scrum events, roles and artifacts.

Successful use of Scrum depends on people becoming more proficient in living these five values. People personally commit to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team members have courage to do the right thing and work on tough problems. Everyone focuses on the work of the Sprint and the goals of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders agree to be open about all the work and the challenges with performing the work. Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people.”

If we look at the detail comparing the two guides, the remainder of the content is identical, except for the copyright language.

At the end of the session, they answered some questions from those attending the webinar. A few of these were:

Q: Why isn’t there a specific event for Backlog Refinement explicitly in the guide? 

A: From the process point of view, the Refinement is carried out in a continuous way, and it is the Scrum Team who decides how and when, so they do not consider it necessary to be included in a prescriptive way in the guide.

Q: What is your opinion regarding the #noestimates movement. 

A: According to a recent RallyDev study of more than 70,000 Scrum teams, the slowest were those who estimated in hours, and the next slowest were those who did not estimate. On the contrary, those who kept small stories estimating in points were the fastest. So, draw your own conclusions…

Regarding variations of Scrum, they were resounding with one of the most common errors in its adoption: “It’s not Scrum if you don’t deliver a working product at the end of the iteration.”

They ended by thanking the attendees, and above all by thanking the thousands of people who are applying Scrum for their feedback. Their Scrum journey has changed their lives and has made them better professionals.

I know it has changed my life. What about yours?

— Miquel