Are you serious? — Episode 47
A common myth held by critics of Scrum is that Scrum Teams are only concerned about what will happen in the current Sprint… or maybe the next one too, at a push. Whenever I give a Scrum training there’s always someone making this statement. The most common reason for bringing it up is to show the apparent weakness of Scrum: with Scrum you’re ignoring the big picture.
The problem is: this is just not true! You don’t have to look further than the Scrum Guide to confirm that. Several passages in the Scrum Guide discuss this.
Here’s an interesting snippet from the Increment section:
“The increment is a step toward a vision or goal.” — Scrum Guide 2017
An increment is the sum of all the completed Backlog Items in the Sprint. With that this establishes that the increment is part of a bigger picture.
But there’s more where the Product Owner is discussed:
“The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the Development Team.” — Scrum Guide 2017
And:
“The Product Owner’s decisions are visible in the content and ordering of the Product Backlog.” — Scrum Guide
The Product Backlog is a manifestation of the vision of the Product Owner. Items at the top of the Product Backlog are usually small enough to be done within a Sprint and ready to be picked up. Typically the items that are lower on the backlog are less clear. Which is fully in line with the notion of empiricism: knowledge comes from experience and you make decisions based on what is known.
Other clear pieces can be found in the Sprint Review section:
“The Product Owner discusses the Product Backlog as it stands. He or she projects likely target and delivery dates based on progress to date (if needed);” — Scrum Guide 2017
And:
“Review of the timeline, budget, potential capabilities, and marketplace for the next anticipated releases of functionality or capability of the product.” — Scrum Guide 2017
Again we see that the Scrum Guide speaks of a vision beyond the Sprint.
I’d say there’s enough proof that Scrum does look beyond the Sprint.
Scrum is a framework!
So why isn’t the Scrum Guide more specific on the topic of planning beyond the Sprint? Well:
“The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the Development Team. How this is done may vary widely across organizations, Scrum Teams, and individuals.” — Scrum Guide 2017
Scrum doesn’t want to be prescriptive on this. It’s not something that Scrum wants to address.
There are many ways to develop a vision and from that a roadmap or however it is called.
Scrum is a framework. It allows many tools and techniques to be used. There are many ways in line with Agile product development to lay down your vision and project beyond a Sprint. Scrum allows you to use whatever you wish to achieve this: teams are actively encouraged to broaden their view beyond just one Sprint.
Myth seriously busted!
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