Back to Basics: Why the Simple Guide is the New Must-Have Reference

Scrum is designed as a lightweight framework for managing complexity. It's built on a few straightforward rules (accountabilities, events, and artifacts), yet we know that in the real world, practicing scrum doesn't always look exactly like what you imagined based on the official Scrum Guide or what you learned during a Scrum Alliance course.

Your team's practice of scrum takes time and gets better with time.

To help bridge that gap, Tobias Mayer and Bob Hartman—two long-standing Scrum Alliance trainers—collaborated to create A Simple Guide to Scrum. This resource distills the framework down to the essentials, providing a succinct reference that stays true to the core of scrum while making it accessible for any context. We sat down with them to learn how this handy companion came to be.

The spark of inspiration

The journey began with a desire to make the "essence" of scrum immediately visible to everyone, from software developers to non-technical teams.

Why did you create the simple guide to scrum?

Tobias: "For many years, I've been frustrated with the length of the Scrum Guide and the frequent changes that often detracted from the core message and had people focus on the minutiae. Especially with the 2020 version, I—and apparently many other trainers and coaches—found ourselves apologizing for the language, e.g., words such as 'accountability', and the loss of 'developer team' as an essential entity. I just felt it needed simplification, so I started playing around with ideas and chatting with others about the concept. Then Bob created a first draft using ChatGPT, and we built it up from there. The version we have is almost completely rewritten from the AI version, but it did give us a very clear and useful structure."

Bob: " I wanted to make it much shorter and easier to understand. I wanted to get to the essence of scrum in a way people could understand and appreciate without having to scroll through 13 pages. I wanted scrum to be much more approachable by more people. Over the past few years, more than half of my clients have been non-software companies, and I needed something they could understand and use in their contexts."

Universal accessibility

One of the most surprising outcomes of this project has been its reach. By simplifying the language, the authors have made scrum understandable to a broad global audience.

What value will people get from the Simple Guide?

Bob: "That's the great unknown! I think it differs by person. We've heard so many touching stories about how it is changing lives. A mom who can now understand what their daughter does for a living. Underprivileged entrepreneurs are using it to run startups. The number of translations is staggering already, and that gives non-English speakers a chance to use it. The list goes on and on. I think the beauty of it is that it is easily understood, which opens the door for more people to get value from it. An individual can get a quick reference to scrum that contains the essential pieces. I hesitate to call it a quick reference guide, but really, it could be used that way."

Tobias: "The ability to read a clear, concise introduction to scrum in about two minutes, and actually understand what scrum is. As one translator told us: 'My mom finally understands what I do'."

Applying the basics in your context

While the Scrum Guide provides the foundational "what," Tobias and Bob envision their guide as a practical touchstone for teams to use as they navigate their specific environments.

What's the best way for someone to use the guide day-to-day?

Tobias: "As an introduction to scrum, and a simple document to refer to when implementing scrum. Studying one section at a time will also give people a surprising depth of understanding, which they then can build on according to their context."

Bob: "Rather than day to day, I prefer to think of it in scrum terms and say sprint to sprint. For teams using scrum, I think one of the best ways is to use it during sprint retrospectives. Have the team hold themselves to the essential elements of scrum and determine whether they are actually doing what they should to unlock the value scrum can deliver. I think that is something everyone on every scrum team can do."

A companion to the foundation

It is important to note that the Simple Guide is meant to complement, not contradict, the foundational work of the Scrum Guide.

How different is the guide from the Scrum Guide?

Tobias: "It describes scrum, almost identically. We derived the work from the Scrum Guide, reducing, but never losing anything essential. We stripped out a lot of noise, much of the implementation detail, leaving a higher level of abstraction but concrete enough for anyone to get started—and not get bogged down in detail."

Bob: "Our goal was to leave out the fluff and make the rest easy to understand. Everything in the Simple Guide to Scrum should be 100% aligned with the Scrum Guide as it exists today (2020 version). With that in mind, we left out a lot. For example, we don't say how long each event should take. We also don't give specific advice about how to do any of the events. Based on the experiences Tobias and I have had with our clients over the years, we believe that being overly specific would do more harm than good. We want to expand scrum's use, not hinder it!"

The non-negotiables of effectiveness

In the messy reality of the workplace, perfection is rare. Tobias and Bob weigh in on what really matters when things don't look exactly like the "textbook" version of scrum.

How important is it for scrum practitioners to follow the Scrum Guide to a T? What should they do if real-world practice doesn't always look the same as the Scrum Guide? Are there certain "non-negotiables" in order for scrum to work effectively?

Bob: "This is the beauty of the Simple Guide to Scrum! We kept the essential elements, but let each team decide how to implement those elements. The core of scrum is elegant in its simplicity. A few roles, some artifacts, some commitments, and some events. I think teams should try harder to do all of those things before bailing out on them. 

Figure out why changes are being desired and fix the underlying issues first. Scrum is elegantly simple, but exceedingly hard because it puts everything under a magnifying glass every sprint. The transparency, inspection, and adaptation approach tends to expose many problems with how work is being done. That's what it is supposed to do. That's the opportunity scrum gives every team: Expose your problems and then try to fix them. Teams that keep doing that will generally settle on using the entirety of scrum. There are many ways to not use all of scrum, and depending on context, some of them may work. However, a team should get there by doing their best to implement all of scrum over many sprints before deciding to make changes."

Tobias: "Only important up to the level the simple guide describes scrum. As one reviewer said: 'Anything less [than the Simple Guide] is not scrum'. Not essential to follow the Scrum Guide word for word. You'd barely get started."

Ready to get back to basics? You can find the Simple Guide to Scrum here.

Interested in learning more about scrum? Check out Scrum Alliance's certifications and microcredential courses to upskill with this work management approach while earning a credential to showcase your knowledge.