Scrum Guide 2020 implementation

The Scrum Guide 2020 was recently updated. What is significant is that we see that the guide incorporates some of the core principles of best-practice product development. Here are some of the critical elements:

• The scrum team is clearly cross-functional, meaning it contains all the skills necessary to create value. For many teams, even non-engineering roles like designers, user researchers, and others are now naturally part of the team. The guide points explicitly in the direction of product teams.
• The team is autonomous and empowered by the organization to manage their work. If there has been one key factor in making skilled people into high-performing teams, it has always been trust and autonomy over micromanagement and control.
• Work has to reach a definition of done to become an increment. The guide doesn't say what the definition of done is, but we think it should clearly be at least something you deliver your users. We hope that boards with single assignees and individual tasks that are not a deliverable will be a thing of the past.
• You have the product and sprint goals, which describe what the planned outcome is. This makes it easier for team members to ensure that their work is aligned with the goals and prioritize what to build and build it. Also, it can be a great way of focusing the team on creating customer value.

Here are some tips to help you implement the 2020 Scrum Guide in Kitemaker:

• Work items in Kitemaker have ample space for you to document and discuss work. You can also specify the team working on a work item, so no artificial 'one assignee' per item. Individual tasks can be documented as todos in the work item description.
• Themes are an excellent way to document sprint and product goals. Simply use the description to write about the goals, and link to external documentation when needed. For Sprint goals, adding the work items relevant for the sprint makes it easy to connect work and goals (Tip: hotkeys also work on the theme screen, so moving elements should be a breeze).

We are building Kitemaker to become the best tool for all teams out there. On our roadmap we have many things that can improve Kitemaker for Scrum practitioners. However, we would like your input before we bring this to the public. Are you implementing Scrum Guide 2020 or otherwise working on "the edge of agile"? Ping us, and we'll let you be the first to try out new features.