Scrum Guide Expansion Pack: why is it essential literature for organisations?
In the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack not just a new document, but a a niche, free resource, which helps organisations effectively implement and operate Scrum. If your teams already know the basics of Scrum, but your management, stakeholders or environment are not supportive enough of agile transformation, this extension concrete solutions and practical advice offer. In this article we review why every agile organisation should read and apply the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack-and what new features it brings compared to the traditional Scrum Guide.
Why the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack?
The Scrum Guide Expansion Pack, which will soon be published in Hungarian translation with the help of our colleague Réka Pétercsák, makes use of several additional calls that are often heard in organizations implementing Scrum. These feedbacks mostly take the following form:
"The team and I have learnt the framework, we believe in it, we run it, we improve it, but there comes a point where we can't take advantage of agility as a grassroots initiative. If leaders still don't understand the basics of agility, if they continue to demand long-term detailed plans from us, if they continue to come to our events to get status updates, then our efforts are in vain."
"We need external or internal help, we need supporters, we want to talk to people who really understand agility, who have been in many of these situations and can help us make decisions and help us transform our environment."
"it's hard for us as a team to do the work and be our own agile coach at the same time"
"We're iterating in principle, we just can't show anyone what we've done, stakeholders, users don't come in for demos".
This and many other gaps in practice are addressed in the newly published 50-page Scrum Guide Expansion Pack by Ralph Jocham, John Coleman, and Jeff Sutherland. The work is niche, as it is available to anyone for free, but it includes elements that were previously only available in licensed content such as SAFe articles. A Scrum Guide Expansion Pack not only describes how Scrum works, but also takes care to set out the basic principles of successful organisational implementation.
Why read the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack?
The Scrum Guide presents the basics of the framework, but in practice many organisations face the following challenges:
- Management does not understand or support agility.
- Stakeholders are not actively involved in Scrum events.
- It is difficult for teams to work and be their own agile coach at the same time.
- Product development is iterative, but the results cannot be presented to decision-makers.
- Change management and the introduction of an agile culture are stuck in the organisation.
The first version itself was written iteratively, and we can expect further enhancements as the agile community's experience and feedback dictates. We recommend reading the Expansion Pack for those with a deep knowledge of the Scrum Guide.
What are the most striking new features of the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack?
1. Theories of Scrum
A detailed introduction to the theories that contributed to the development and successful operation of Scrum. While we have so far only tangentially encountered "uncertainty", "complexity", "empirical process control", "self-organization" in key works, the authors devote separate chapters to major and complementary theories such as
- complexity,
- professionalism,
- emergencia,
- product thinking,
- systems theory,
- discovery,
- leadership,
- First Principles thinking,
- human change.
2. Basics in practice: the Scrum pillars as a framework principle
The basic pillars of Scrum, Transparency, Inspection and Adaptation are not only explained, but run through the whole text, showing which behaviours and habits can be implemented in practice and help the actual operation of the three pillars. For example, the text highlights how it supports effective transparency, e.g.
- the Product Objective,
- the sprint target,
- a Product Backlog,
- a Sprint Backlog,
- the use of AI analytics,
- the First Principles thinking,
- applying the Beyond Budgeting approach.
This type of framing also facilitates understanding and decision making, making it easier to answer questions that arise when running Scrum and implementing changes.
3. Stakeholder engagement in Scrum
One of the most exciting sections is the chapter on roles, which introduces many new features, including the role of actors supporting organisational agility and the role of AI. Stakeholders are highlighted in the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack, which will come as a relief to many.
In the past years, the role of the Scrum team, i.e. the Scrum Master, Product Owner and the developers, was known to be the most important for the success of Scrum, and although many people knew the theory that iterative operation and learning feeds on feedback, few people consciously implemented this system.
The Scrum Guide Expansion Pack emphasizes that for Scrum to work successfully in an organization, it is crucial to create regular, targeted interactions between the Scrum Team and Stakeholders (including but not limited to customers and users). In addition, it discusses in detail the most common types of Stakeholders who are involved in the successful operation of Scrum: customer, user, decision maker, sponsor, experts, legislators.
4. A specific Stakeholder: the role of the Promoter
A special role is given to the so-called Supporters among the Stakeholders, who appear in the document as special stakeholders. They support the Scrum Team and help to shape the organisation's processes, systems, products, services and working environment in a way that is in line with the implementation of Scrum and the emergent way of working. Supporters can be individuals in any role, whose scope and culture-shaping work should be supported by senior management.
5. The role of AI in the Scrum team
The exciting challenges of artificial intelligence are also reflected in the Scrum framework. The authors highlight how AI can help teams:
- identify ambiguities and uncertainties in textual elements and keep their own proposals under constant review,
- regularly validate and adapt the models and applications they want to use,
- make the principles of Product Backlog management more transparent,
- to create agents who act as AI-based team members,
- consciously test and challenge their current thinking.
Of course, the challenges of AI are also touched upon in the document, "It is important that people take responsibility for the results in all cases (according to Scrum responsibilities), while AI acts as a powerful but controlled decision-making partner."
The possibilities offered by AI can also affect the composition of teams, because while the role of the Scrum Master or Product Owner is clearly defined as a human actor, the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack says the following about Developers:"It is important that there is at least one human actor developing the product. The presence of multiple human developers typically increases cognitive diversity, which is an advantage when dealing with complex situations."
6. A stricter tone regarding roles
While the Scrum Guide is necessarily a short document containing the most essential basics of the framework, designed to be widely understood, the Expansion Pack now allows you to communicate the boundaries.
The add-on continues to draw attention to the "lightness" of the framework and the "need for improvement in the organisational context", but also indicates where the work of individual actors, for example, may be found to be insufficient, putting the success of the system at risk. "...if a Product Developer does not aspire to professionalism, is not prepared for it, is not able to deliver it, then it is appropriate to step back from the role of Product Developer".
7. The role of leaders in transformation
An often voiced concern is that senior management rarely get the guidance that would help them learn agile, and this is addressed in the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack. They highlight that gaps in leadership commitment and organisational culture cannot be addressed by external consultants and change agents alone.
In addition, one of the key factors behind failed implementations and transformations is that the overall picture of adaptive functioning at management level has shown little improvement over the past 25 years. In its absence, the organisation risks that leaders will oversee a so-called 'theatre of change', where timely, humane and effective initiatives will appear at best in isolation - without really permeating the whole organisation".
8. Product vision and purpose
The flexible, iterative nature of the Product Owner's design work and its diversity - my personal pain - cannot be discussed at length in the Scrum Guide. The Scrum Guide Expansion Pack, on the other hand, already covers the role of the product vision and the product goal and the relationship between them. A minor but important clarification concerns the Product Goal.
The product target was introduced as a new element in the Scrum Guide in the Scrum Guide updated in 2020, and since then, several criteria have been created for writing a "really good" product target and its timeframe, i.e. the timeframe for which it is worth preparing a product target.
The document recommends the following ratios: a medium-term Product Goal is often a stepping stone towards a long-term Product Vision, which the team must first meet (or replace) before starting to work on another one. The Product Goal is a mid-term objective, the current, single, more strategic and ambitious objective (the "why"). It provides direction for the Product, which developers can move towards with more tactical Sprint Goals (the "why" of the Sprint).
9. The role of Refinement
Refinement was removed from the list of official events in the 2020 Scrum Guide, which was not a problem for the more experienced teams, as they were already using their own systems and event structures. For the beginner teams, however, the "refinement as an approach" thought process caused more problems, as the question arose: if it is not mandatory according to Scrum, how should we incorporate it into iterations, is refinement necessary at all?
The question is clarified in the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack: there are still four main events within a sprint, and refinement is an activity that can take place in the form of a formal event or informally. During refinement, the Product Backlog items are broken down into smaller, more understandable Product Backlog Items (mainly for the Scrum Team). The participants are the Scrum Team members and the necessary stakeholders.
10. Output and Outcome Done
From the Scrum Guide you may already be familiar with the expression that any so-called work material or artefact includes a commitment to. "This will ensure that information is available to increase transparency and focus, and also provide a basis for measuring progress." (Scrum Guide, 2020) For Product Backlog this is the Product Goal, for Sprint Backlog this is the Sprint Goal. The Scrum Guide Expansion Pack continues this line and describes that the Definition of Outcome Done for Product and the Definition of Output Done for Increment will be the commitment.
In the Definition of Outcome Done means observable data (qualitative or quantitative) that can be measured to verify that the product is delivering value to stakeholders (e.g. user satisfaction or cost reduction for business stakeholders).
In the Definition of Output Done involves the interpretation of the already known Definition of Done for an Increment (e.g. a specific product part): it refers to the quality criteria (e.g. technical standards or quality expectations) that must be met in order for the Increment to be delivered to Stakeholders.
Summary
The Scrum Guide Expansion Pack is not just an add-on document, but a comprehensive guide to help organisations implement and run Scrum in a truly effective way. If your teams already know the basics of Scrum, but your environment, leadership or stakeholders are not sufficiently supportive of agile transformation, this expansion pack offers more detailed guidance.
Even in its 50-page form, the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack will only inspire you to read and learn more. It is intended to be summarizing, yet it provides a broad insight into topics that are essential for organizations trying to survive in a complex and rapidly changing world.
Do you need more information or support in developing agility at organisational or even team level? Request a free consultation, or have a look at our training courses!
