Did you know?
Scrum’s new Expansion Pack isn’t just another tweak to the 2020 Guide; it’s a field manual that rebalances discovery and delivery for complex, AI-driven enterprises. Love it or hate (this isn’t the place for that), I wanted to provide some thoughts on what I took away (and yes, I could be wrong, I didn’t write the Expansion Pack). It's a tough read, so I tried to help.
Feel free to challenge or point out my flaws; I love and welcome it.
| Area | Old Scrum | Expansion Pack Upgrade |
|---|---|---|
| Accountabilities | PO, SM, Developers | PO, SM, Product Developers + explicit Stakeholder, Supporter & AI roles |
| Events | Same four events | Smarter agendas: Sprint Planning Why – What – How; Daily = adaptation; Review = evidence; Retro = systems & safety |
| Artifacts | 3 artifacts, 3 commitments | “Done” split → Output Done vs Outcome Done; backlog items = hypotheses; increments = learning triggers |
| Metrics | Velocity, points (never in Guide) | Evidence-based outcomes, assumption validation, user-behavior signals |
| Scrum Master | Servant leader, event shepherd | Change agent & system challenger, operates at org-level complexity |
So what?
- From Manufacturing Rhythm to Discovery Flow
Reinertsen’s Principles of Product Development Flow remind us that small batches speed up feedback and reduce investment risks. The Pack’s “hypothesis backlog” directly applies this flow-based economics to Scrum; not widely interpreted well in the guide itself. - Evidence over Estimates
Velocity has never correlated with business value. By reframing “Done,” teams adopt Kotter’s urgency and ADKAR’s Reinforcement to keep outcomes, not story points, at the forefront. - AI as an Unaccountable Role.
Recognizing AI contributors (LLMs for test generation, bots for CI/CD) formalizes human–machine superminds (MIT's Malone) and preempts governance gaps. We still have to work on this one for sure, but I can appreciate the call-out in the pack. - Scrum Masters Become Business-Transformation Catalysts
The role now encompasses systems thinking, organizational design, and culture; echoing Hamel’s Humanocracy principle: unleash talent, dismantle bureaucracy (I often said Scrum, done right, is minimal viable bureaucracy). This has really always been the case, but depends on who you are learning from; if from us, we are passionate about the Scrum Master being a systems level job; not just team level.
Now What?
It's time to convert insight into action. The Expansion Pack’s ideas only generate value when they reshape daily behaviors, governance rituals, and measurement systems. That means shifting from abstract enthusiasm to concrete experiments you can run in the next sprint, splitting “Done,” instrumenting outcome metrics, and empowering Scrum Masters to challenge bottlenecks.
The steps below give you a practical starting playbook; adapt them to your context, measure relentlessly, and iterate forward.
| Step | What to Do | How to Do It |
|---|---|---|
| 1: Create Urgency Around Discovery | Quantify cost of delay for unvalidated assumptions | Run a 2-week “assumption burn-down” workshop and share results with execs |
| 2: Upskill Developers into Product Developers | Blend product thinking, data science & DevOps | Launch a “Discovery Dojo” pairing UX researchers with engineers |
| 3: Split “Done” in DoD | Add explicit Outcome Done metrics | Use feature flags and A/B tests to capture real-world signals |
| 4: Re-engineer Events for Flow | Timebox Sprint Planning into Why–What–How tranches | Pin visible OKRs; reserve 20% capacity for learning spikes |
| 5: Empower the Scrum Master as Systems Coach | Give SM authority to pause work on systemic impediments | Formal charter from execs; SM joins quarterly strategy reviews |
| 6: Instrument Evidence-Based Metrics | Replace velocity dashboards with Outcome Heatmaps | Integrate analytics into CI; broadcast at Sprint Review |
| 7: Govern AI Contributions | Define guardrails for AI “role” (privacy, bias, security) | Add policy checks to pull-request templates |
Our Attempted Summary
I present some important columns to try to quickly digest the pack and its relation to the guide. I am sure plenty of others have done the same and focused on what they are passionate about; as have I. It is not mutally exclusive, I just didn't want to write a novel :)
| Topic | 2020 Scrum Guide (baseline) | Expansion Pack – What’s New / Different | Why it Matters (Impact) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core Purpose & Theory | Empiricism + Lean thinking; 3 pillars: Transparency, Inspection, Adaptation. | Re-affirms pillars and adds a fourth: Evolution, continuous experimentation at product, team, and org levels. | Elevates experimentation to a first-class practice; teams run micro-experiments each Sprint. |
| Defined Roles / Accountabilities | Scrum Team with 3 accountabilities: Product Owner, Developers, Scrum Master. | Adds two optional accountabilities: Sponsor (funding & strategy) and Stakeholder Representative (curates external voices). | Clarifies funding/strategy ownership and stakeholder input, frequent pain points in scaled environments. |
| Artifacts | Product Goal, Sprint Goal, Increment. | Adds Definition of Outcome Done (DoOD) and Definition of Output Done (DoPD). | Prevents “feature factory” traps by separating value achieved from work completed. |
| Events | Five events within the Sprint container. | Introduces optional micro-events: Backlog Discovery Loop and Sprint Readiness Check (≤15 min). | Supports continuous discovery and reduces Day-1 thrash when backlog items lack readiness. |
| Metrics & Commitments | Guidance only; metrics optional. | Defines minimum evidence set: Outcome, Progress, and Team Health metrics reviewed at Sprint Review. | Encourages evidence-based product management, guarding against output-only success criteria. |
| Scaling Advice | Framework-agnostic. | Provides an Expansion Lattice for coordinating up to 9 teams without extra roles; recommends Scrum-of-Scrums/Nexus beyond that. | Offers pragmatic on-ramp before adopting heavyweight scaling frameworks. |
| AI & Automation | Not referenced. | Treats AI copilots and testing bots as Augmented Developers; adds DoD addendum for AI-generated work. | Clarifies accountability and quality when generative AI contributes to the Increment. |
| Language Tone | 14-page minimal reference. | 22-page pack; same terse tone, but each section ends with “Why this helps teams today” call-outs and examples. | Makes theory-to-practice leap easier and gives trainers built-in talking points. |
Key Take-Aways for Coaches & Teams
- Everything in the 2020 Guide still applies, the Expansion Pack is additive, not prescriptive.
- Use the Sponsor & Stakeholder Rep accountabilities when funding alignment or external noise regularly blocks Sprint flow.
- Pilot Definition of Outcome Done on one Product Goal: it’s a fast antidote to output-heavy roadmaps.
- Try the Sprint Readiness Check for one Sprint; measure defect/carry-over reduction.
- Don’t wait for big-bang scaling, experiment with the Expansion Lattice once you have 3-4 squads on the same product.
Adopt changes incrementally, inspect the impact, then adapt, honoring the spirit of Scrum and its new evolution pillar (practice agile, agile-ly).
Catalyst Questions for Leaders
- How will we know if a sprint increment changes user behavior?
- What specific signal (conversion%, NPS shift) will confirm it?
- Where are we still measuring output instead of outcomes?
- Which report should we retire or replace this quarter?
- What assumptions have lingered beyond two sprints without validation?
- What’s the real cost of not testing them now?
- How is AI currently augmenting (or diluting) team accountability?
- Where do we lack visibility into machine-generated work?
- What systems obstacle would halt progress if the Scrum Master hit pause today?
- Who owns fixing it, and by when?
Join a Big Agile hands-on Scrum workshop to transform these ideas into repeatable practice.
You’ll leave with actionable playbooks, case studies you can replicate, and the confidence to help your teams deliver validated value, fast. Seats go quickly, so reserve yours today and accelerate your path to genuine business agility.