Leverage Sprint Goals to Supercharge Teamwork and Build Winning Products There are many books on Scrum and how to do Scrum the right way. This isn't one of those books. Driving Value with Sprint Goals will teach you how to deliver exceptional value. To build great products, all teams and participants must align behind clear goals that deliver real value (outcomes)--not just more features (output). Sprint Goals are your most powerful tool for achieving this alignment, but many teams avoid, misuse, or struggle with them. Maarten Dalmijn guides you through defining, creating, and executing on Sprint Goals that deliver outstanding value to customers and the business. This concise guide is packed with strategies and concepts for building high-performing teams that accelerate the delivery of value. As you reconsider critical Scrum and product management processes through the lens of the Sprint Goal, you can transform your entire organization from being low-value "feature factories" to delivering high-value outcomes. Understand how making plans doesn't start with planning but with intent Use humble planning together with intent to deal with surprises as you discover and learn what's necessary while you do the work Establish a laser-like focus on driving the outputs that lead to the most valuable outcomes Learn how to use Sprint Goals throughout the Sprint, at Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, and for the ongoing work of building high-performing teams Learn what happens when Sprint Goals are absent or misapplied, and how to avoid those pitfalls Driving Value with Sprint Goals will reshape the way you think about delivering value by offering a fresh and cohesive perspective invaluable to every Product Owner, Product Manager, Scrum Master, Agile Coach, and tech executive. "Maarten masterfully bridges the gap between Scrum and product management. If you want to create products that truly make a difference, you need to read this book." --Pawel Huryn, Author, Product Coach Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Jurgen Appelo xvii Foreword by Janna Bastow xix Introduction xxi Acknowledgments xxv About the Author xxvii Part I: Why Goals Matter 1 Chapter 1: Imperfect Plans, Flawed Execution, and Unpredictable Results 3 Dealing with the "Fog of Beforehand" One Step at a Time 4 Facing the Unknown in Software Development 6 How the Agile Manifesto Covers Common Anti-Patterns for Dealing with Friction 15 Key Takeaways 16 Chapter 2: More Friction, More Surprises 19 The Cynefin Model: Being Aware of Your Situation 20 Key Takeaways 32 Chapter 3: Countering Friction by Leading with Intent 33 The Tragedy of Following the Plan and the Resulting Transformation of the Prussian and German Army 34 Auftragstaktik: Obeying Intent Rather Than Blindly Following Orders 35 Closing the Three Gaps by Leading with Intent 36 Turn the Ship Around: Intent-Based Leadership on a Submarine 38 Key Takeaways 41 Chapter 4: Tales of Opposing Goals 43 Why Do Common Goals Matter? 43 Working Together with Opposing Goals 44 Surviving in Roadmap Hell 46 How Do Common Goals Enable Teamwork? 48 Key Takeaways 49 Part I Overall Takeaways 49 Part II: Sprint Goals Are the Beating Heart of Scrum 51 Chapter 5: A Featherlight Introduction to Scrum 53 Scrum: Sprinting One Step at a Time53 The Sprint Contains All Scrum Events 55 Scrum Deals with Friction Through Feedback Loops 61 Key Takeaways 64 Chapter 6: The Fundamental Role of Sprint Goals in Scrum 67 The Essence of Scrum: Sprint with a Goal 67 What Are the Scrum Artifacts Together with Their Commitments? 71 How Do Product Goals Fit In? 72 How Does Scrum Help with Countering Friction and Dealing with Surprises? 74 Key Takeaways 76 Chapter 7: What Happens When You Don't Use Sprint Goals? 77 Sprint Loses Its Purpose and the Sprint Backlog Becomes the Goal 77 Following the Plan Becomes More Important Than Meeting the Objective 78 Everything in the Sprint Becomes Equally Important 79 Working Without Sprint Goals Leads to Technical Debt 79 No Control Over What Gets Finished 80 Key Takeaways 81 Chapter 8: Two Very Different Versions of Scrum 83 Why Do Many People Believe Scrum Isn't Agile? 84 Anaconda-Style Scrum and Hummingbird-Style Scrum in Practice 86 Key Takeaways 92 Part II Overall Takeaways 92 Part III: Driving Value with Sprint Goals 95 Chapter 9: Creating Sprint Goals 97 What Is a Sprint Goal? 97 Crafting Sprint Goals with the FOCUS Mnemonic 98 Key Takeaways 102 Chapter 10: Sprint Goals in Practice at the Scrum Events 103 Why Should You Start Discussing the Sprint Goal at the Sprint Review? 103 Crafting a Sprint Goal During Sprint Planning 106 Why You Shouldn't Plan Your Sprint at Full Capacity 107 Creating a Sprint Goal Without a Refined Product Backlog 111 The Sprint Goal at the Daily Scrum 112 The Sprint Goal at the Sprint Review113 The Sprint Goal at the Sprint Retrospective 114 Key Takeaways 115 Chapter 11: More Features, More Value? 117 How Does Our Product Deliver Value? 117 Selling Rocks as Pets 119 The Cookie Store That Was Guaranteed to Fail 119 Value Is Multifaceted and a Matter of Perspective 120 Value Is a Tricky Subject 121 Building a Product Starts with Listening 122 The Three Types of Uncertainty 123 The Cobra Effect: When Exterminating Cobras Causes a Cobra Population Boom 124 Having Outputs Drive the Right Outcomes 125 Meeting Aggressive Timelines Is Often the Biggest Enemy of Delivering Value 126 Focusing on Meeting Specifications Limits You to Beforehand Knowledge 127 Why You Should Stop Obsessing Over Your Velocity 128 All Features Are Innocent of Delivering Value Until Proven Guilty 128 Output Focus: People Don't Want a Quarter-Inch Drill 129 Key Takeaways 130 Chapter 12: Driving Outcomes with Outputs 131 Having Only Features on Your Product Backlog Is Not Good Enough 131 A Single Metric to Rule Them All? 132 Why Should Your Product Backlog Be Short? 136 Don't Waste Too Much Time on "A Priori" Prioritization 137 Key Takeaways 139 Chapter 13: Product Vision: A Purposeful Direction for Your Product 141 Dispelling the Mystery of a Product Vision 141 The Lab Mouse Meant for Bigger Things 143 The Swiss Aerodynamics Engineer Who Married an Italian Woman 144 Key Takeaways 146 Chapter 14: Product Strategy 147 Strategy Means Striking at Weakness 148 Strategy Is Designing a Way to Deal with a Challenge 149 Key Takeaways 151 Part III Overall Takeaways 152 Part IV: Overcoming Common Sprint Goal Obstacles 155 Chapter 15: Scrum Anti-Patterns That Amplify Friction and Surprises 157 Spikes for Everything: Knowledge Gap 158 Christmas Wish List Backlog: Knowledge Gap 160 Groundhog Day Refinement: Knowledge Gap 161 Eternal Sprint Planning: Knowledge and Alignment Gaps 162 Interruption Planning: Alignment Gap 163 Definition of Ready: Knowledge and Effects Gaps 163 Fixating on Pretty Burn-Down Charts: Knowledge, Alignment, and Effects Gaps 164 Embrace Not Knowing and Act in the Moment 165 Key Takeaways 166 Chapter 16: Dealing with Common Sprint Goal Obstacles 167 Too Many Competing Priorities 167 Impossible to Set a Single Sprint Goal 169 The Sprint Backlog Is the Goal 169 The Sprint Goal as an Afterthought 170 Sprint Goals Tied to the Solution Direction 171 The Product Owner Decides the Sprint Goal 171 Too Many Dependencies on Other Teams 172 The Team Is Scared to Commit to a Sprint Goal 174 Too Much WIP (Work in Progress) 175 Opposing Goals Between Teams 176 Management Love for the Feature Factory 177 OKR-Induced Friction 178 Key Takeaways 180 Chapter 17: From Stakeholder Management to Stakeholder Inclusion 181 Working in a State of Perpetual Displeasure 182 Why Should You Include Your Stakeholders? 185 How Do You Include Your Stakeholders? 186 Dealing with Stakeholders Means Controlling Your Emotions 187 Key Takeaways 188 Chapter 18: Scaling Scrum Without Frameworks 191 Why Your Development Team Structure Might Be Slowing You Down 191 Fix Your Problems: Do Not Expect That from a Scaling Framework 193 Why Do Scaling Issues Happen? 195 What to Do Instead of Defaulting to a Scaling Framework 197 Key Takeaways 201 Chapter 19: Empowering Teams to Discover Better Ways of Delivering Value 203 Making Music Without Making a Sound 203 It All Starts with Addressing Beliefs 206 Trying Things Out Requires Psychological Safety 207 What Does an Empowered Scrum Team Look Like? 208 How Do You Provide Sufficient Direction and Context? 209 Create a Model for How Your Product Delivers Value 210 Discovery, Delivery, and Validation 210 Scrum Is About Discovering Better Ways of Delivering Value 212 Index 217