As we've mentioned a number of times on this blog, CivicActions uses the Scrum framework.  To keep our skills up to date and to learn from the experiences of others we try to participate in the Scrum and Agile communities.

Last night at Agile Denver Charles Bradley (ScrumCrazy) talked about the major changes made to the 2011 Scrum Guide (PDF).  His blog post goes into more detail but I wanted to share some changes that I found interesting and useful.

• The Dev team now "forecasts" the work that will be completed in a sprint instead of "committing" to it.  I find this change in vocabulary incredibly helpful in setting expectations.
• The Product Backlog is now "ordered" instead of "prioritized".  Order is affected by Priority, Risk, Necessity and Value.
• Product Owner duties can be delegated (although the PO is still held accountable for ensuring that backlog management is done well).  Since our Product Owners are our clients and are often new to Scrum we have been experimenting with the duties of this role quite a bit.  The concept of delegating some of the duties while keeping the responsibility with the PO is definintely something to throw into the mix.

It is worth noting, that the Scrum Guide is not produced by the Scrum Alliance, so I am not sure if their training will incorporate these changes.  There is a bit of a schism taking place in the Scrum world between the Scrum Alliance and Scrum.org.  The Project Management Institute has also entered the game and has started to offer a certificate called the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner.

If you haven’t been to a local Agile or Scrum meetup I HIGHLY recommend it.  I’ve found them to be highly informative and edicational.

You may be able to find user groups that meet near you on one of the following websites.:

• Scrum Alliance User Groups
• Agile Alliance User Groups