Driving Value with Sprint Goals

Maarten Dalmijn is a consultant, speaker and trainer at Dalmijn Consulting. Maarten helps teams to beat the feature factory all over the world. Millions of practitioners have read his best-practice articles on Agile, Scrum, and Product Management. He specializes in helping companies to build empowered teams that can discover better ways of delivering value. Maarten is a frequent speaker at Fortune 500 companies, government organizations and international industry conferences. He has worked with many award-winning start-ups and scale-ups. Maarten is an ambassador and editor at Serious Scrum, the largest Scrum publication on Medium.

"Maarten masterfully bridges the gap between Scrum and product management. If you want to create products that truly make a difference, you need to read this book."--Pawel Huryn, Author, Product Coach"It is not just a book on Sprint Goals. It's an essential read for all those who work in a complex environment and try to make sense of things."Maarten not only writes about Sprint Goals, but he also explains the hardest part of agile--what agile mindset means. This book will lead you to experience many breakthroughs. From what Scrum really is about, through why copy-pasting a scaling framework is not a recipe for success, to the biggest of them all--a breakthrough from a project-driven mentality to an agile one."--Maria Chec, Head of Agile Practice and Creator at Agile State of Mind"Maarten's relentless focus on value delivery instead of mechanically churning out new features is a breath of fresh air. This book will help you to up your game, align around value, and use the power of sprint goals to build great products."--Chris Stone, The Virtual Agile Coach"This book is a must-read if you want to understand Scrum's essence and empower your team. Instead of covering how to do Scrum right, Maarten shows you how to leverage the framework to deliver value. Intertwined with personal stories and history lessons, you'll find concrete examples, models, and practical advice to help you build empowered teams that deliver the desired outcomes."--Jenny Herald, VP of Evangelism at Quantive and host of the Dreams with Deadlines podcast"Starting with some schoolchildren dropped in the dark on an island who manage to find their way back, the author explains in a down-to-earth way how breaking projects down into sprints helps us to overcome the universal problem of friction. The book brings insights to daily practice in a clear, simple, and engaging way."--Stephen Bungay, author of The Art of Action"I don't think there is anything like it in the area of Scrum. It reads like a novel and is stuffed full of brilliant ideas and insights. Maarten has a knack for illustrating complex concepts with inspiring examples completely unrelated to Scrum and Agile. This book will change the way you think about Scrum and Agile. I would recommend it to anyone remotely interested in a new way of working!"--Erik de Bos, writer of the Agile Thoughts newsletter"'Sprint Goals are the beating heart of Scrum,' writes Maarten Dalmijn, and this couldn't be truer. Without them, Scrum falls apart. Unfortunately, we know from scientific research that many Scrum teams don't use Sprint Goals or struggle greatly with them. This book makes a powerful argument for why Scrum teams need Sprint Goals and offers invaluable anecdotes, practical tips, and guidelines to help you get started right away."--Christiaan Verwijs, author of the Zombie Scrum Survival Guide, co-founder of The Liberators, and Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org"If you're looking for a Sprint Goal-writing recipe book to blindly follow, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for an engaging tour of ideas, which helps you discover the ecosystem to create meaningful goals, you'd be wise to read this book."--Jem Jelly, Certified Scrum Trainer & Consultant

• Foreword by Jurgen Appelo xviiForeword by Janna Bastow xixIntroduction xxiAcknowledgments xxvAbout the Author xxviiPart I: Why Goals Matter 1Chapter 1: Imperfect Plans, Flawed Execution, and Unpredictable Results 3Dealing with the "Fog of Beforehand" One Step at a Time 4Facing the Unknown in Software Development 6How the Agile Manifesto Covers Common Anti-Patterns for Dealing with Friction 15Key Takeaways 16Chapter 2: More Friction, More Surprises 19The Cynefin Model: Being Aware of Your Situation 20Key Takeaways 32Chapter 3: Countering Friction by Leading with Intent 33The Tragedy of Following the Plan and the Resulting Transformation of the Prussian and German Army 34Auftragstaktik: Obeying Intent Rather Than Blindly Following Orders 35Closing the Three Gaps by Leading with Intent 36Turn the Ship Around: Intent-Based Leadership on a Submarine 38Key Takeaways 41Chapter 4: Tales of Opposing Goals 43Why Do Common Goals Matter? 43Working Together with Opposing Goals 44Surviving in Roadmap Hell 46How Do Common Goals Enable Teamwork? 48Key Takeaways 49Part I Overall Takeaways 49Part II: Sprint Goals Are the Beating Heart of Scrum 51Chapter 5: A Featherlight Introduction to Scrum 53Scrum: Sprinting One Step at a Time53The Sprint Contains All Scrum Events 55Scrum Deals with Friction Through Feedback Loops 61Key Takeaways 64Chapter 6: The Fundamental Role of Sprint Goals in Scrum 67The Essence of Scrum: Sprint with a Goal 67What Are the Scrum Artifacts Together with Their Commitments? 71How Do Product Goals Fit In? 72How Does Scrum Help with Countering Friction and Dealing with Surprises? 74Key Takeaways 76Chapter 7: What Happens When You Don't Use Sprint Goals? 77Sprint Loses Its Purpose and the Sprint Backlog Becomes the Goal 77Following the Plan Becomes More Important Than Meeting the Objective 78Everything in the Sprint Becomes Equally Important 79Working Without Sprint Goals Leads to Technical Debt 79No Control Over What Gets Finished 80Key Takeaways 81Chapter 8: Two Very Different Versions of Scrum 83Why Do Many People Believe Scrum Isn't Agile? 84Anaconda-Style Scrum and Hummingbird-Style Scrum in Practice 86Key Takeaways 92Part II Overall Takeaways 92Part III: Driving Value with Sprint Goals 95Chapter 9: Creating Sprint Goals 97What Is a Sprint Goal? 97Crafting Sprint Goals with the FOCUS Mnemonic 98Key Takeaways 102Chapter 10: Sprint Goals in Practice at the Scrum Events 103Why Should You Start Discussing the Sprint Goal at the Sprint Review? 103Crafting a Sprint Goal During Sprint Planning 106Why You Shouldn't Plan Your Sprint at Full Capacity 107Creating a Sprint Goal Without a Refined Product Backlog 111The Sprint Goal at the Daily Scrum 112The Sprint Goal at the Sprint Review113The Sprint Goal at the Sprint Retrospective 114Key Takeaways 115Chapter 11: More Features, More Value? 117How Does Our Product Deliver Value? 117Selling Rocks as Pets 119The Cookie Store That Was Guaranteed to Fail 119Value Is Multifaceted and a Matter of Perspective 120Value Is a Tricky Subject 121Building a Product Starts with Listening 122The Three Types of Uncertainty 123The Cobra Effect: When Exterminating Cobras Causes a Cobra Population Boom 124Having Outputs Drive the Right Outcomes 125Meeting Aggressive Timelines Is Often the Biggest Enemy of Delivering Value 126Focusing on Meeting Specifications Limits You to Beforehand Knowledge 127Why You Should Stop Obsessing Over Your Velocity 128All Features Are Innocent of Delivering Value Until Proven Guilty 128Output Focus: People Don't Want a Quarter-Inch Drill 129Key Takeaways 130Chapter 12: Driving Outcomes with Outputs 131Having Only Features on Your Product Backlog Is Not Good Enough 131A Single Metric to Rule Them All? 132Why Should Your Product Backlog Be Short? 136Don't Waste Too Much Time on "A Priori" Prioritization 137Key Takeaways 139Chapter 13: Product Vision: A Purposeful Direction for Your Product 141Dispelling the Mystery of a Product Vision 141The Lab Mouse Meant for Bigger Things 143The Swiss Aerodynamics Engineer Who Married an Italian Woman 144Key Takeaways 146Chapter 14: Product Strategy 147Strategy Means Striking at Weakness 148Strategy Is Designing a Way to Deal with a Challenge 149Key Takeaways 151Part III Overall Takeaways 152Part IV: Overcoming Common Sprint Goal Obstacles 155Chapter 15: Scrum Anti-Patterns That Amplify Friction and Surprises 157Spikes for Everything: Knowledge Gap 158Christmas Wish List Backlog: Knowledge Gap 160Groundhog Day Refinement: Knowledge Gap 161Eternal Sprint Planning: Knowledge and Alignment Gaps 162Interruption Planning: Alignment Gap 163Definition of Ready: Knowledge and Effects Gaps 163Fixating on Pretty Burn-Down Charts: Knowledge, Alignment, and Effects Gaps 164Embrace Not Knowing and Act in the Moment 165Key Takeaways 166Chapter 16: Dealing with Common Sprint Goal Obstacles 167Too Many Competing Priorities 167Impossible to Set a Single Sprint Goal 169The Sprint Backlog Is the Goal 169The Sprint Goal as an Afterthought 170Sprint Goals Tied to the Solution Direction 171The Product Owner Decides the Sprint Goal 171Too Many Dependencies on Other Teams 172The Team Is Scared to Commit to a Sprint Goal 174Too Much WIP (Work in Progress) 175Opposing Goals Between Teams 176Management Love for the Feature Factory 177OKR-Induced Friction 178Key Takeaways 180Chapter 17: From Stakeholder Management to Stakeholder Inclusion 181Working in a State of Perpetual Displeasure 182Why Should You Include Your Stakeholders? 185How Do You Include Your Stakeholders? 186Dealing with Stakeholders Means Controlling Your Emotions 187Key Takeaways 188Chapter 18: Scaling Scrum Without Frameworks 191Why Your Development Team Structure Might Be Slowing You Down 191Fix Your Problems: Do Not Expect That from a Scaling Framework 193Why Do Scaling Issues Happen? 195What to Do Instead of Defaulting to a Scaling Framework 197Key Takeaways 201Chapter 19: Empowering Teams to Discover Better Ways of Delivering Value 203Making Music Without Making a Sound 203It All Starts with Addressing Beliefs 206Trying Things Out Requires Psychological Safety 207What Does an Empowered Scrum Team Look Like? 208How Do You Provide Sufficient Direction and Context? 209Create a Model for How Your Product Delivers Value 210Discovery, Delivery, and Validation 210Scrum Is About Discovering Better Ways of Delivering Value 212Index 217