The 2024 Scrum Guide introduces a more straightforward framework that's more accessible and inclusive with any industry, distancing its IT origins. It also clarifies some terms and eliminates unnecessary and complex statements.
Download the 2024 Scrum Guide PDFAt Light-it, we find the updates very positive and are happy to welcome the new scrum guide! These are some of the changes that I find particularly relevant:
The Scrum Team: it now consists of the Product Owner, Developers (people creating usable increments), and the Scrum Master. There are no sub-teams or hierarchies as you might remember from the previous version, what was defined as the Development Team was removed to reduce the potential conflicts and to focus the whole Scrum Team on the same objective: the Product Goal. The Scrum Team as a whole is responsible for creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint.
The product Goal: The Scrum Team shares this long-term objective, described as a future wishable state of the product.
Scrum Masters are defined as "true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization." The term servant-leader was removed.
Self-management: this term is used to highlight that Scrum Teams choose "who, how, and what to work on," while on past Scrum Guides, the term "self-organization" described that Development Teams chose "who and how to do work."
Events: The purpose of events is clarified, and the instructions for conduction are more flexible.
Commitments: Now, each of the three artifacts (product backlog, Sprint Backlog, and a potentially releasable product increment) holds commitments (responsibilities). The Product Backlog has the Product Goal, the Sprint Backlog has the Sprint Goal, and the Increment has the Definition of Done. This also helps define some terms such as sprint goal and "done" which were roughly described in the previous Scrum Guide.
"Done" definition: it's now clarified that it creates a (potentially releasable) Product Increment. "The Definition of Done is a formal description of the state of the Increment when it meets the quality measures required for the product. The moment a Product Backlog item meets the Definition of Done, an Increment is born." (Scrum Guide, 2020).
