- We've looked at scrum as a whole,
and now we're putting each of the elements
under the microscope.
Today it's the turn of the increment.
Welcome to development that pays.
And welcome back to this series
on various aspects of scrum.
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Here's the scrum diagram that we've been looking at.
The product backlog provides inputs to the system,
and the increments are the output of the system.
Each sprint produces one increment.
Hmm, does this feel just a little bit too easy?
I think we better check in with the venerable scrum guide.
The increment is the sum of the product backlog items
completed during a sprint,
and the value of the increments of all previous sprints.
I think the first part of that sentence
is straight forward enough,
but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the second part.
Shouldn't that be the sum of all previous sprints,
and the current sprint?
If you figured it out,
please let me know in the comments below.
And if you haven't yet figured it out, check in the,
you know, the comments below.
Question for ya.
Is this episode, the one you're watching right now,
does that qualify as an increment?
Well I think if you look at it
as a standalone episode it doesn't really.
But if you consider it to be one of a series,
what on YouTube would be known as a playlist,
I think it might.
My project is to create a playlist on the subject of scrum.
In my product backlog
I have a list of possible episode titles.
So for this one I picked an item from that product backlog,
and I've been working on it during my current sprint.
Clearly I'm still working on it.
But the fact that you're watching it now
means that I must've completed it.
And let's say for the sake of argument
that I successfully completed it
during the course of my current sprint.
In summary, I took one backlog item,
I worked on it during a sprint, and I produced one episode.
The episode being the increment.
So far so good?
Let's head back to the scrum guide.
At the end of a sprint,
the new increment must be done.
Which means it must be in a usable condition,
and meet the scrum teams definition of done.
Ah yeah, definition of done.
It was one of the things that I forgot to include
in the first episode of this series.
Time to make at least partial amends.
So thinking about this video again,
is the definition of done even up for discussion?
Well, yeah I think it is.
You're watching it now, which means it has been published.
Which is about as done as I can possibly make it.
But other definitions of done are possible here.
Uploaded to YouTube, but not yet published.
Video file exported, but not yet uploaded.
Editing complete, but video file not yet exported.
All of these are definitions of done, but are they valid,
and do they result in a valid increment?
Back to the scrum guide.
An increment is a body of inspectable,
done work that supports empiricism.
The keyword here is inspectable.
And another keyword here is empiricism.
Empiricism means that we base our decisions
on what is known.
What can be inspected?
These are all inspectable to varying degrees.
If I was working with a distributor team,
I might cross this one off the list.
Given that it requires direct access to my computer.
The scrum guide goes on to say,
the increment is a step towards a vision or goal.
Well yeah, not really sure why that appears here.
The increment must be in a usable condition
regardless of whether the product owner
decides to release it.
Well, hold on a sec.
Does that mean that a published video
isn't a valid definition of done?
I think it might mean that.
And it comes down to ownership.
If the product owner owns the decision as to
whether or not to release a piece of code,
or indeed whether or not to publish an episode,
then the development teams definition of done
should stop short of that point, of that decision.
Why?
Well, because the development team
should be able to achieve it's definition of done
without any input from the product owner.
I focused so much on the end of that sentence
that I almost forgot to talk about the beginning.
The increment must be in a usable condition.
So the firm condition here is not that it's released,
but that it is releasable.
Which leads me to the three little words that
you've probably been waiting for me to say for some time.
Potentially releasable increment.
A reminder that there is a cheatsheet
to go along with this series.
The scrum cheatsheet.
You will find a link to it in the description below.
Follow the link and the instructions,
and it is all yours.
Let's wrap this one up with a very quick summary.
The increment is the output produced by a scrum team
during the course of a sprint.
It's output that meets the development teams
definition of done.
The key condition of which is that it is releasable.
Hence the term potentially releasable increment.
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Cheers for now.