2020 guide sprint review wording insight
Trying to get some insight into a wording change in the 2020 guide. Given the text below from the 2020 guide:
INSPECTION text
The Scrum artifacts and the progress toward agreed goals must be inspected frequently
EVENTS text
Each event in Scrum is a formal opportunity to inspect and adapt Scrum artifacts.
ARTIFACTS text
Thus, everyone inspecting them (artifacts) has the same basis for adaptation
INCREMENT text
The sum of the Increments is presented at the Sprint Review thus supporting empiricism.
SPRINT REVIEW text:
The purpose of the Sprint Review is to inspect the outcome of the Sprint and determine future adaptations.
Question:
Is there a reason why they purposely did not say "inspect the increment" in the Sprint Review text? You could argue the increment is the outcome or the outcome is the increment. This wording just strikes me as odd since throughout the guide, it repeats the message that events provide formal opportunity to inspect and adapt artifacts, but for some reason in the Sprint Review they chose NOT to say "inspect the increment"
A Sprint Review ought to consider the work Done and not Done. Inspecting the Increment provides insight into work completed, but not necessarily into work remaining.
A demonstration may help to inspect the Increment, for example...but a Sprint Review is far more than any demo. It is the outcome of the Sprint that must be studied, including any work that is still left to do. Remember that the key output of a Sprint Review is an up-to-date Product Backlog.
What is the outcome of the Sprint?
That question has a lot of answers. One outcome is the creation of one or more Increments, but since each Increment is inclusive of all previous Increments, only the last Increment needs to be reviewed. However, there are also other outcomes. Another is the completion of or failure to complete the Sprint Goal and progress toward the Product Goal. Another is the specific Product Backlog Items that were completed. Still, another is the current state of the environment and market. Yet another is the order of the Product Backlog.
It's true that many of these - the Increment, the Sprint Backlog and Sprint Goal, the Product Backlog and Product Goal - are Scrum artifacts. Not all of them are. The best example is looking at the environment or market - competitors, users, outside legal or regulatory factors, and others. The Sprint Review is an opportunity to align the Scrum Team with the current state of these, but they aren't Scrum artifacts.
As an aside, I can't agree with limiting the definition of Inspection to "Scrum artifacts and the progress toward agreed goals". Not only is there an opportunity at the Sprint Review to inspect things that are not artifacts or progress toward goals, but there are also other opportunities. Consider the Sprint Retrospective, where the people and processes are inspected and adapted. Similarly, I would remove "Scrum artifacts" from the Scrum Events definition, making each event "a formal opportunity to inspect and adapt".
In my mind it's really just semantics. It just struck me as odd as it didn't follow the rest of the guide. For me inspecting the increment touches everything mentioned above - what was done, what wasn't done, progress towards goals, adaption of the PB for upcoming sprints (because after all, what is inspection without adaption?), tech debt incurred, etc.
IMHO It was written like that on purpose, it is the only place where the word "outcome" is used. I would say that Increment is merely an output, not an outcome. Use of outcome should shift our focus from what was done, to what changed because of that? what had we learned? It does not imply that inspection of other things is not important, but too often it narrows down only to show off like "we did feature X, Y, and Z - it does this and that", and by that focusing on output, not on an outcome - which should be a more important thing to inspect.
I like the change to focus on artifacts as the Sprint and Product Backlogs are also artifacts. You could look at the increment and not do any inspection or adaption of the backlogs. Focusing all of the attention on a single artifact has lead to issues in some teams that are just starting up. I feel that focusing on the increment is what has lead to the misconception that the Sprint Review is actually a Demonstration.
In my mind it's really just semantics.
To some extent the entire Scrum Guide is semantics. It explains a framework that is successful for helping teams maintain a discipline that leads to continuous delivery, inspection and adaption of work. The issue I had with the previous version is that it tried to guide by including some specific references but the references weren't entirely clear and often misused. The current guide explains enough for someone to understand the reason and importance but not enough to be considered prescriptive.
An interesting aspect that is not mentioned in the above discussion is the following sentence in the Commitment/DoD section (final page of SG2020):
If a Product Backlog item does not meet the Definition of Done, it cannot be released or even presented at the Sprint Review. Instead, it returns to the Product Backlog for future consideration.
This suggests that the Sprint Review should not be about inspecting undone PBIs, but only the done ones. In my opinion that encourage Scrum Teams to be less transparent thus limiting opportunities to inspect and adapt.