What would a designer change in the official Scrum Guide?
We are expecting an update to the “Scrum Guide: The Rules of the Game,” in 2023. What happens when a designer suggests three changes?
The development of Scrum in a nutshell
So what is Scrum? The official site defines it as a framework for developing and sustaining complex products. A common association with scrum comes from the sport of rugby, in which a group of rugby players known as “forwards” form a formation as a form of restart after a foul is committed.
Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka were the first to notice how manufacturers were modernizing their processes. These manufacturers not only launched their products faster, but they did so in a collaborative manner. Takeuchi and Nonaka then linked the “rugby” approach with product development, “where a team tries to go the whole distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth.”
Sutherland then took inspiration from Takeuchi and Nonaka’s work. By developing his own set of processes in the software environment, he began using the phrase “Scrum” as a sign of respect and continuity. The Scrum Guide thus contains “the official Scrum Body of Knowledge.” In 2001, a group of technology leaders recognized scrum under the collective term “Agile,” which formed the basis of the Agile Manifesto, Values, and Principles. And finally, in 2010, Sutherland and Schwaber created the first HTML version of the Scrum Guide. Today, Scrum is one of the most widely adopted Agile methodologies. It has a heritage spanning over 30 years and over two million certified practitioners.
Scrum Guide: into the next iteration
Since then, the Scrum Guide has gone through five revisions. Revisions aren’t necessarily bad; they help keep the document alive based on the industry’s updates and the wisdom of the crowd. This pull-and-push behavior is healthy to bring out the quality and consistency of the material.
Hence, it is worth noting that the next iteration should be coming up! One can observe that the guide gets updated on average every two years. Given that the last update was done in 2020, we are expecting to see the latest update to the scrum guide in 2023.
Having looked through the revisions, the general aim is to make the guide more accessible to non-technical users. Simpler words are also used to make abstract concepts understandable. Finally, good attempts to be more inclusive have been made with the introduction of a “One Team” setup.
You could then say the Scrum Guide is going in the right direction and be satisfied with the changes. The stubborn designer in me, however, feels that there can be greater advancement. It is time to no longer limit ourselves to the same rules of the game but to break free from the original convention.
Out of the rugby folklore arose a young and annoyed Webb-Ellis. Irritated by the game of soccer, he picked up the ball and ran with it. And so, the legendary action ultimately formed the Rugby Union in 1870. Now is the time to evolve like Webb and to extend the metaphor to give more meaning to Scrum Guide 2023. The following are my desires to make the document even greater:
1. Designers d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶e̶r̶s̶ all around
Yes, product development is a heavyweight job, and having a strong technical team is an asset. The scrum guide loosely defines who “developers” are: developers, researchers, analysts, scientists, and other specialists that do the work. The description seems to fit an analytical, logical, and rigorous archetype. The creative, visual, and empathetic profiles are excluded. One would question why such a delineation is made, as it seems to draw a reference to left-sided brainers. The science, however, indicates the use of both brain activities in solving complex problems. So, it begs the question: where is the other half?
Perhaps the word "scrum" is one half of the story. In rugby, the forward half acts as the scrum to give the back half the opportunity to win back the game. They do rely on the scrumhalf and the backs to continue the game. What happens after is teamwork.
No cross-functional team has a single atypical profile. The tendency to have UX/UI, creatives, writers, psychologists, and storytellers on the team is growing. How these people operate in the scrum events is equally important because they help achieve both the product and sprint goals in unique ways.
Let’s consider the phrase “everyone is a designer.” As Daniel Burka puts it,
“Whether you like it or not, whether you approve it or not, people outside of your design team are making significant design choices that affect your customers in important ways. They are designing your product. They are designers.”
Don Norman adds this too:
“We are all designers. We manipulate the environment, the better to serve our needs. We select what items to own, which to have around us. We build, buy, arrange and restructure: all this is a form of design.”
My proposed edition:
As Scrum’s use spreads, “professionals of different disciplines” do the work. We use the word “designer” in Scrum to recognize “human-centricity.” If you get value from Scrum, consider yourself included.
2. Scoring big in moments I̶n̶c̶r̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶
Gooooooaaaallll!
And the crowd goes wild with cheers of their favorite team scoring the goal! What’s unique about rugby are the various ways of scoring a goal, from a 3-point drop goal to a full 7-point try and conversion goals. Yes, every point counts to win the game against your opponent, but the rate of points earned lies not just with individual skills or tactics alone. Known as "home-field advantage," sports performers tend to win more often when competing at their home facility. Players are in these moments when their fans are behind them.
In the current Scrum guide, the following is said about “increments”:
“An Increment is a concrete stepping stone toward the Product Goal… In order to provide value, the Increment must be usable.”
While the above statement establishes functionality, it lacks emotional and social connections. Sometimes, these outputs are not obtainable from within the team. It has to go out to the “stakeholders,” both internal and external customers. Amazon recognizes both stakeholders very well. In every Amazon meeting, an empty chair is meant for the customer as a reminder to be customer-obsessed.
Rather than an “increment,” what happens when an outcome could be expressed as “moments”? The thinking is not as abstract as it seems. Think about how Google has used “micro moments” to create little functional experiences for people. The author, Dan Heath, also describes defining peak moments as unforgettable experiences. In fact, this expression correlates with the phenomenon known as the peak-end rule, which was discovered by behavioral economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. We can derive a new typology. Beyond functionality, we can measure moments by their stakeholders' desirability.
My proposed edition:
A “moment” is a concrete stepping stone toward the Product Goal… In order to provide value, the Increment must be “desirable.”
3. Healthy war dance for every team’s culture a̶r̶t̶e̶f̶a̶c̶t̶
The traditional war dances performed by different rugby teams are the most unique features of the sport. Besides the most famous war dance, known as the Haka, performed by all Blacks, other war dances include the Tongan’s Sipi Tau, the Fijian’s Cibi, and the Samoan's Sivi Tau. What sets these teams apart is that their culture and identity are embedded in their profession.
Sean Fitzpatrick, the former New Zealand captain, says it best:
“It’s about us, about our families, about our Whakapapa. About who has come before us. We’re laying down a challenge but it’s more than that. People maybe don’t realise how deep it goes.”
Agile tool company Atlassian agrees with the importance of having both quality work and a strong team culture. Overall employee happiness comes from a healthy culture, and the propensity to get work done faster and better becomes higher. When individuals feel a sense of belonging, safety, and purpose, they go the extra mile in achieving the product goals.
So if sprints are the heartbeat of scrum, culture is the heartbeat of a team’s performance through recognition and reflection. Culture further reinforces the five Scrum values: commitment, focus, openness, respect, and courage. Culture focuses on individuals, thereby improving scrum deliverables.
How about adding a culture element to the sprint retrospective? Interestingly, the definition of "retrospective" is the showing of the work an artist has done in their life so far. It wouldn't be so far-fetched to link the designers and their works together and celebrate the milestones.
My proposed edition:
The purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness, “as well as to update the health and culture of the Scrum Team.”
Metaphors are by far the most effective tools to communicate an idea. In his book, Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff writes the following:
“The most important claim we have made so far is that metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. We shall argue that, on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical.”
The agile community embraces the rugby metaphor made by Hirotaka Takeuchi, Ikujiro Nonaka, Ken Schwaber, and Jeff Sutherland. Let us continue to evolve and adapt one of the longest-living agile practices. As designers, we can only hope that the sport will grow by having more advocates pick up the ball and run with it.
For further reading:
Burka, D. (2017). Everyone is a designer. get over it., medium. GV Library Available at: https://library.gv.com/everyone-is-a-designer-get-over-it-501cc9a2f434 (Accessed March 4, 2023).
Heath, C. and Heath, D. (2019) The power of moments: Why certain experiences have extraordinary impact. London: Corgi.
Koetsier, J. (2018) Why every Amazon meeting has at least 1 empty chair, Inc.com. Available at: https://www.inc.com/john-koetsier/why-every-amazon-meeting-has-at-least-one-empty-chair.html (Accessed: March 3, 2023).
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (2017) Metaphors we live by. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press.
Mendes, N. (2020) How to build a company culture that will last, Work Life by Atlassian. Atlassian. Available at: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/what-is-company-culture (Accessed: March 4, 2023).
Norman, D. (2002) Epilogue: We are all designers, Research Gate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265482463_EPILOGUE_WE_ARE_ALL_DESIGNERS (Accessed: March 3, 2023).
Rigby, D., Sutherland, J., & Takeuchi, H. (2021, August 27). The secret history of agile innovation. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2016/04/the-secret-history-of-agile-innovation
Rugby for beginners: a guide to the rules of rugby union (2014) YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/FOJejnPI0p0?t=280 (Accessed: March 4, 2023).
Takeuchi, H. and Nonaka, I. (2014) The new new product development game, Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game (Accessed: March 4, 2023).
