Scrum Team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint
At first I thought these sentences in the latest 2020 Scrum Guide contradicted each other. But after taking each of the sentences and comparing them side-by-side, I believe they now make sense to me. This is how I worked it out in my mind.
The latest Scrum Guide 2020 has the following 3 sentences:
- “Developers are the people in the Scrum Team that are committed to creating any aspect of a usable Increment each Sprint.”
- “The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team.”
- “The entire Scrum Team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint.”
The way that I interpret these 3 sentences is the following:
- Developers = “Create” Increment
- Product Owner = Maximize “Value”
- Therefore; Scrum Team = Accountable for “creating” a “valuable” Increment.
Correct
The main way the PO maximises value is in prioritising the PBI's.
It may be that in certain PBI's have complex dependencies as such the single highest value PBI isn't delivered first...or even "early"
but the Dev team isn't responsible for knowing which PBI is "how valuable" - that's the PO.
The "superset" though is both responsible for knowing what valuable looks like, and understanding how to deliver it (even considering the choices already made to date).