--> The Scrum Guide Explored: where words drive practice

Words Matter… Also in Scrum

Welcome to The Scrum Guide Explored—a growing series of reflections on the language of the Scrum Guide and what each word means when applied in real-world, professional practice.

Every word in the Scrum Guide is chosen with care. It’s short. Intentional. Sometimes deceptively simple. As my fellow Professional Scrum Trainer Roland Flemm beautifully put it: “There’s a poetry in the Scrum Guide.” This series aims to unpack that poetry—one word, one phrase, one sentence at a time.

For your convenience, I’ve organized the posts in the order the words appear in the Scrum Guide, grouped by section. That way, you can easily revisit specific topics—or explore new ones at your own pace.

To date, this series only covers a few paragraphs of the Scrum Guide. But there’s much more to come—so bookmark this page and check back regularly.

Want to stay up to date?
Get the newest blog posts delivered weekly to your inbox: The Scrum Guide Explored – Weekly Series.

Wishing you an inspiring read and a wonderful journey.

Scrum on!

1. The Scrum Guide Explored - Scrum is a Game!

Purpose of the Scrum Guide 

2. The Definition of Scrum
3. Scrum's Essential Elements
4. It's a Guide!
5. Covering Up Problems...
6. Breaking the Myth: Developers Aren’t Just Software Engineers
7. How Is Scrum Simplifying or Adding Complexity to Your Life?
8. Why Scrum Doesn’t Provide Specific Solutions—And Why That’s a Good Thing!

Scrum Definition

9. What Does It Mean That Scrum Is a Framework? Is it Even Important...?
10. Scrum: The Power of Doing Less
11. Is Scrum Helping You? Discover How to Uncover Its Real Value
12. Who Can Really Use Scrum? Hint: It’s Not Just Teams
13. Defining Value in Scrum: What Does It Mean for You?
14. Adaptive Solutions: The Heart of Scrum’s Power
15. Scrum and Complex Problems: Why Planning Isn’t Enough
16. The Scrum Master’s Role: Fostering Growth and Adaptation
17. Fostering the Right Environment: The Scrum Master’s True Role
18. Ordering Work in Scrum: it's about Clarity, Alignment and Collaboration
19. Ordering vs. Prioritizing: What a Product Owner Really Does in Scrum
20. The "Backlog" in Scrum: Beyond Features and Long Lists
21. How Scrum Teams Select Work: Collaboration Toward Value
22. Scrum Increments: Building Value, One Step at a Time
23. Valuable Increments: Delivering What Truly Matters to Users
24. Useful vs. Usable: What Makes an Increment Truly Valuable?
25. Is Your Increment Truly Inspectable? Why it Matters More Than You Think...
26. Scrum Adjustments: The Difference Between Learning and Stagnation.
27. Are You Inspecting to Adapt or Just Showcasing?
28. Stakeholders in Scrum: Who They Really Are (And Who You Might Be Missing)
29. Why ‘Repeat’ is the Most Powerful Word in Scrum
30. Scrum Is Simple… So Why Is It So Hard?
31. Scrum Not Working? Try It As Is Before You Modify It
32. Scrum Not Helping? Here’s How to Find Out Why.
33. Scrum Still Not Working? Start with the Philosophy
34. Scrum Feels Broken? Maybe You Missed the Theory...
35. Scrum Not Delivering? Check the Structure. Minimal by Design, Powerful by Purpose.
36. Scrum isn’t the Goal—Your Goals are
37. Why the Scrum Guide is Purposefully Incomplete, and why that’s a good thing!
38. Scrum Only Defines What’s Really Required. Aren’t You Adding Too Much?
39. Scrum Isn’t Complete Without This One Ingredient: Collective Intelligence
40. Scrum works—If you let people think (Collective Intelligence part II)
41. Scrum’s Game Rules: Few, Clear, and Powerful
42. To Guide, Not to Control: Scrum’s Take on the Hard Stuff
43. The Secret to Better Scrum? Look at the Relationships
44. Which techniques belong in your Scrum team? Here's the real answer.
45. Scrum Wraps Around What You Already Do—But Not to Keep It Warm
46. Rethinking legacy: when Scrum makes old practices obsolete
47. Busy ≠ Effective: What Scrum should actually makes visible
48. Scrum isn’t (just) for Delivering—it’s for Improving
49. Scrum Guide Explored: What we’ve learned so far (and what’s next)

Scrum Theory

50. What’s Holding Up Your Scrum Implementation—Steel Beams or Quicksand?
51. Scrum Isn’t a Belief System—It’s a Learning System
52. Cut the Fat, Keep the Focus: Lean Thinking in Scrum
53. Scrum Doesn’t Guess. It Learns.
54. Are your decisions rooted in observation—or assumption?
55. Cut the Waste: how Lean Thinking powers Scrum
56. Stop drowning in “Nice-to-Haves”: how Scrum sharpens your focus on the Essentials
57. Daydreaming or Guesswork? Why Scrum demands Iterative and Incremental

To be continued...

With finalising the Scrum Definition section, we still have a way to go...: the sections Scrum Theory, Scrum Values, Scrum Team, Scrum Events, Scrum Artefacts, and End Note...