How can you balance Scrum focus with changing requirements?

This question describes a problem in Scrum Theater. Focus is on the Sprint (and Product) goal, which is a strategic, not a tactical, thing on the order of "solve this class of user problems." Requirements change is not something to balance. It's integral to the entire process. If you don't welcome that, you aren't Agile. These are not two things that need to be balanced against each other.

Balancing Scrum focus with changing requirements demands flexibility and strategic prioritization. Embrace change as an opportunity to deliver enhanced value, prioritizing impact over scope. Apply the 80/20 rule, focusing on critical features first. Regularly inspect and adapt processes, limiting work in progress to maintain focus. Empower your team to make decisions that align with evolving needs. Additionally, maintain open communication with stakeholders to ensure that changes are effectively integrated without compromising the sprint goals.

Sometimes there are a few misinformation may lead to huge problems. The main thing is that, there are just five values in the Scrum Framework based on the official guide of it including Focus,Commitment,Courage,Respect,Openness. However, if you want to satisfy customers, regardless of embracing change, we have to take care of our team. I mean if you want to disturb your team members every day as embracing change this would disintegrate your team in the near future.

Balancing Scrum focus with changing requirements involves effective communication, adaptability, and prioritization. Maintain a transparent backlog, prioritize changes based on value and impact, and adjust sprint goals accordingly. Use techniques like story points to estimate effort and adjust the sprint scope as needed. By being flexible and proactive, you can adapt to changing requirements while maintaining the benefits of Scrum.

Its our Duty, our Ability, and our Value proposition! Change is unavoidable! We are going to create a system that is ready to accept new requirements and handle them correctly. Lets change our definition of FOCUS: focus means that we optimize our resources for highest priority works. Its Dynamic!

Measuring success isn't just about numbers; it's about the stories told by happy customers. Choosing value over just getting things done isn't just a rule; it's a promise to make our projects successful. It starts by figuring out, together with the team, what 'value' really means for our customers and regularly revisiting and adjusting the backlog ensures our efforts stay attuned to the customer expectations.

Prioritizing value has consistently led to more successful and satisfying outcomes for both teams and customers. It aligns the team's efforts with the true needs of the customer, ultimately resulting in a more effective and impactful product or service. This principle is at the heart of Agile's customer-centric approach.

Balancing Scrum focus with changing requirements means prioritizing value over scope Value-Driven Decisions: Regularly reassess and prioritize tasks based on their contribution to the project’s overall value, rather than just completing set features. Minimal Viable Product (MVP): Focus on delivering a functional MVP that meets core needs first, allowing for adjustments based on feedback. Stakeholder Input: Engage stakeholders in prioritizing features that deliver the most business value. Adaptive Planning: Be prepared to shift focus as needed to address the most valuable aspects first.

In the Scrum framework, only completing the identified tasks is insufficient but tasks must deliver value aligned with business priorities. Therefore, applying the values of inspecting and adapting in Scrum ensures that the focus is on delivering value rather than just achieving scope.

Most team resist on changes without even evaluating the value. Two misconceptions around change management in agile teams: One, some teams think agile is allowing changes at any time - No for this. Agile is welcoming changes, but, deciding what to welcome and when to welcome them is critical to success. Two, another obvious misconception I have seen is, scrum teams saying "during a Sprint, no changes allowed" - No for this as well. If you can deliver better value by allowing changes, why not? The key here is the value perspective. In order to plan your requirements, always define your value curve for each feature or capability. During your prioritization, reference this to decide the priorities. Adjust to optimize value delivery.

Sure thing - Look at this way... You have a big jug and you are trying to fill it with rocks, stones and sand... Now, what do you put in first? Well, you tend to put sand first - coz, that's the easiest. Then what? small stones? Well, yes, this is generally what we do next! Finally, rocks - so by the time you want to put the big rocks in, you don't have enough space:) This is the same trap that most companies are falling into: In above story, sand is your tactical daily tasks, stones are the tactical priorities and big rocks are your strategic priorities... In order to be effective reverse the above order, decide the top important, strategic priorities your self and then tactical priorities - they will bring the best ROI..

According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts. As per Scrum, this principle suggests that it is crucial for teams to focus their efforts on tasks that deliver the most significant value. As requirements change or priorities shift, it may be necessary for the team to reassess and reprioritize tasks, potentially leaving out less impactful or trivial tasks in favor of those that contribute more substantially to the project's objectives. This ensures that the team maximizes its efforts and resources on activities that have the greatest impact on achieving its goals.

The recognition that a significant portion of outcomes or effects is often driven by a relatively small fraction of causes or inputs. In the other way, the 80-20 rule is a principle that states 80% of all problems are derived from 20% of causes. Key part: Identifying and focusing on the most impactful factors can lead to more efficient and effective results. In a classical wardrobe example, most of us wear 20 percent of our clothing, 80 percent of the time.

I must confess, I love this approach. It helped me guide teams to think strategically in their effort to commit, it helped me provide guidance to PO's in scoping MVP ( Minimum Viable Product). It helps in tackling technical debt, and priorize following features on eventual releases, it helps to keep focus on what is really important to resolve.

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts. This means that you should focus on the most important and impactful tasks or features, and avoid spending too much time or resources on the less important or trivial ones. By applying the 80/20 rule, you can balance Scrum focus with changing requirements by delivering the essential functionality and quality that your customers want, while leaving room for flexibility and improvement. You can also use the 80/20 rule to decide when to stop working on a task or feature, and when to move on to the next one.

Scrum is based on Empiricism and it has three core pillars - 1. Transparency 2. Inspection & 3. Adaption. One of the best thing in Scrum is 'Inspect' & 'Adapt'. By default in Scrum, the team should be open to inspection (frequent) at any given point of time. Based on the outcome, the feedback has to be adapted. This ensures the working product is in line with the stakeholder needs. 'Transparency' is making the project work visible and understandable to all the stakeholders.

In Scrum, rigidity is the antithesis of progress. It's essential to embrace a flexible mindset, ready to pivot based on regular inspections of our processes and feedback. 🔄 The goal? Continuous improvement. Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives aren't just formalities; they're our tools for critical evaluation and strategic adjustments. 🛠️ Daily Scrums keep us on our toes, ensuring we're always at the top of our game and aligned with our team and objectives. 🎯 We listen, we learn, and we lead change—keeping our process as dynamic as the market we serve. Let’s use Scrum not just to do the work but to improve how we work.

Inspecting and adapting shouldn’t stop from an internal perspective. Determine the minimum viable product (MVP) - do this by asking the question “What is the minimum functionality that this feature or area can have to give us the feedback and answers we need from our users?”. This not only helps make informed business decisions to iterate on your product and features, but it keeps the goalpost from moving too much on the first iteration.

Regularly assess the risks associated with changing requirements. Consider the impact on the project's scope, schedule, and resources, and plan accordingly.

Inspection, adaptation, and transparency are three fundamental elements of Scrum that play a crucial role in the professional evaluation, adjustment, and achievement of optimal results for a product. Through these components, the project's progress is assessed in a systematic and skilled manner, enabling valuable insights into the necessary adjustments and changes needed to drive the project towards success.

Adapting to change is one key aspect of Scrum. Never stick on to a rigid plan; instead accept change and focus on delivering value to stakeholders. Utilize the sprint meetings to collaborate with the stakeholders, customers and team members to identify what went well, what did not went well, what could be improved. This can have a great impact on delivering your outcome.

Two disciplines that have helped me all times: One, Limit the backlog: This has created so much clarity before I pick my priorities and helped me to achieve the second discipline That is, Limit WIP - Work in Progress: ✅ Define your teams, WIP Limited for each workflow state. It has to be the right amount of priorities your team handles at one point of time. ✅ Validate your sprint commitments and ensure not to overload the team. And then, use the Daily Scrum to validate the daily WIP limits with your team - Whenever you find the team crossing it's limits, fix such situations ✅ Focus on completing what is started before you start picking more ✅ Encourage collaborative approaches such as mob programming and pair programming

Limiting WIP is essential in Scrum. It keeps us focused on finishing tasks at hand, improving both delivery speed and quality. By not overloading our teams, we stay nimble and ready to adapt to changes, ensuring we don't waste effort on work that may become obsolete. Visual tools like Kanban or Scrum boards are practical for keeping track of WIP and maintaining our agility.

Great development-teams gather around Product Backlog Items one-by-one to maximise flow, collaboration and focus during the Sprint. At the higher level we need to view the Product Backlog as "open", meaning "not committed". Items in the Backlog might be delivered - or not. If, on the other hand, Items are already sold/promised the work on these Items are already in progress.

Limiting Work in Progress (WIP) on a Kanban board helps prevent multitasking by controlling the number of items that can be pulled into active work at any given time. This ensures that team members can focus on completing tasks with complete focus, rather than juggling multiple tasks simultaneously. By reducing multitasking, teams can minimize wasted time and resources and improve overall efficiency and productivity.

"Notify stakeholders: Report to stakeholders about the rebalancing of the sprint's objectives so that they can adjust their plans or expectations."

Team is the key player behind any successful delivery of product or project. One Cohesive team can perform any challenging task provided the team is empowered, self-organized & self-motivated. These all qualities can foster in a team provided mutual trust & environment of respect is bestowed upon them by leadership team.

The Scrum framework is based on the principle of enabling teams to become self-organized and self-managed. This is achievable when teams are granted the authority and accountability to make decisions and take suitable actions. In line with Scrum values such as trust, courage and openness, it is essential for the Scrum Master to trust team members. This fosters an environment where team members feel empowered to collaborate, communicate effectively, and openly share feedback with one another.

Empowering your team means granting them autonomy, authority, and responsibility to make decisions that are best for the product and the customer. Trust in their expertise and creativity, and support their growth. Encourage effective collaboration and open communication with stakeholders, and welcome their ideas and feedback. This approach fosters a culture of agility, innovation, and customer satisfaction.🤝

(1) Collaborative Decision-Making: Foster a culture of collaborative decision-making within the team. Involve team members and stakeholders in discussions about changing requirements and collectively decide on the best course of action. (2) Adaptive Sprint Reviews: During Sprint Reviews, showcase work completed during the sprint and be open to feedback. If changing requirements arise during the review, discuss how they can be accommodated in future sprints.

Within a sprint, the focus should remain on the sprint goal, which allows for adaptability. Scrum allows the team to re-plan each and every day with the daily scrum- set a goal for the day within the sprint goal and organize the work. Scrum is much more aligned to organizations that change than traditional program management processes of define the entirety and only then begin work. However, change within 2 weeks is something to watch also - if we are consistently challenged to keep to our sprint goal for 2 weeks, or constantly thrashing with requirements, do we have issues with HIPPOs (highest paid person's opinions) getting in the way of data driven decision making?

Regularly assess and prioritize requirements based on their value and urgency. Use techniques like MoSCoW (Must-haves, Should-haves, Could-haves, Won't-haves) to classify requirements.

Balancing Scrum focus with changing requirements means being flexible and adaptable. It involves talking often with stakeholders to understand what they need, delivering parts of the project frequently so you can adjust as you go, and keeping a list of tasks ranked by importance. After each phase, you look back to see what worked and what didn't, making changes accordingly. Everyone involved needs to know what "done" looks like so there's no confusion. It's important for the team to have the power to make decisions, and for the person in charge of the project to be actively involved. By constantly talking to each other and adjusting plans as needed, the project stays on track even when things change.

Una forma de mantener el foco en el objetivo del sprint y aún así considerar el continuo cambio de requisitos, es usar un búfer de interrupción (Illegitimus non-Interruptus). Esto es, asignar explícitamente tiempo para las interrupciones y no permitir más trabajo del que cabe dentro de esa asignación, por ejemplo, un 10 % del tiempo del sprint. Ahora bien, si el trabajo excede la asignación (se desborda el búfer), podemos tomar la decisión de abortar el Sprint. Si el búfer se excede, es posible que tengamos un problema cuya solución necesite del uso de otros patrones o de cambios en la estrategia actual de trabajo. Esta táctica requiere medir el tiempo de interrupción en los sprints previos para tener una idea del búfer a asignar.

Reinforce Agile Mindset: Emphasize the core Agile principle of welcoming changing requirements, even late in development. Scrum isn’t about balancing change against goals; it’s about adapting to change to better meet user needs and achieve strategic objectives.