Scrum users? Who are they?

The Scrum Guide says: "Scrum users must frequently inspect Scrum artifacts and progress toward a Sprint Goal to detect undesirable variances". 

Which role is responsible, in Scrum, for inspecting and adapting progress towards a Sprint Goal? Are you considering "Scrum users" in a wider context? 

Hi Manoj,

The term "Scrum users" appears in the Inspection part of the Scrum guide. It says "Scrum users must frequently inspect Scrum artifacts and progress toward a Sprint Goal to detect undesirable variances. Their inspection should not be so frequent that inspection gets in the way of the work. Inspections are most beneficial when diligently performed by skilled inspectors at the point of work."

Let's break this paragraph down...

1. Scrum users must frequently inspect Scrum artifacts.

There are 3 artifacts:

- The Product Backlog, inspected by the Scrum Team and stakeholders

- The Sprint Backlog, inspected by the Development Team

- The Product Increment, inspected by the Scrum Team and stakeholders

2. [Scrum users must frequently inspect] progress toward a Sprint Goal to detect undesirable variances.

This is done by the Development Team, as specifically mentioned in the Daily Scrum section of the Scrum Guide: "The Development Team uses the Daily Scrum to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal"

3. Their inspection should not be so frequent that inspection gets in the way of the work.

Arguably, the "work" in this sentence implicitly refers to the work of the Development Team.

4. Inspections are most beneficial when diligently performed by skilled inspectors at the point of work.

I understand here that skilled inspectors depend on what is being inspected so it could be anyone within the Scrum Team or indeed the whole Scrum Team.

Based on the above, I think the "Scrum users" term was chosen as a way to refer to any involved parties without specifying a particular role. It could therefore be the Development Team, The Product Owner, The Scrum Master, stakeholders, or any combination of these roles.

Thanks a lot Clem for such a splendid explanation.

Thank you for posting this question. I had similar query and this post helped me.

I was confused if the Scrum User ,as mentioned exactly once in Scrum Guide, also referred to the 'Organization' as whole as they are users / adopters of the Scrum framework. 

Apriori, Scrum Users sounds much like same as Scrum TEAM. However, future release of the scrum guide should make distinctions.

By reading the sentence again, anyone can see how cleverly and concisely the sentence has been written:

Scrum users must frequently inspect Scrum artifacts and progress toward a Sprint Goal to detect undesirable variances.

The key questions are:

• What are Scrum Artifacts?
• Who do/does inspect each Scrum Artifact?
• What is the Sprint Goal?
• How do/does define the Sprint Goal?
• Who do/does inspect progress toward a Sprint Goal?

I'm sure you'll end up in Scrum Team as Scrum Users.

You can find these answers here: https://www.scrumguides.org/