What's different in the 2020 Scrum Guide?

November 29, 2020

The following are the changes that struck me the most in the 2020 Scrum Guide:

"Customer" and (end) "users" (as opposed to "Scrum users" in the 2017 version) are both mentioned. I'd like to see more improvements in customer-centricity and outside-in thinking.
Scrum can and should be attempted for a variety of types of knowledge work - software terms except "developer" have been removed
The Development Team is dead, long live Developers - encouraging one team, even if developers commit to the Sprint Goal
Experimentation is explicitly mentioned
Scrum Team has 10 members or less
Product Backlog Refinement is encouraged
Sprint Goal found a proper home - its the commitment related to the Sprint Backlog and it's now included in the Sprint Backlog
Definition of Done found a proper home - it's the commitment to the increment
Scrum Values and empiricism is for the Scrum Team and people they interact with including stakeholders - stakeholders are mentioned twice as often in this version of the Scrum Guide
Accountabilities of Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Developers are emphasized, thus supporting the antithesis of Patrick Lencioni's five dysfunctions of a team.
Scrum Master is on the hook for the effectiveness of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team and the organization but is no longer referred to as a servant leader.
Product Owner is on the hook for maximizing value and articulating/communicating the (new) Product Goal to support that - the Product Goal is the commitment related to the Product Backlog
Developers are on the hook for delivering a useful & usable done increment that supports the Sprint Goal; there is not much point in the increment being usable if it's neither useful not valuable:).
Continual improvement is expected, some improvements might even go into the next Sprint Backlog, and implicitly other improvements are immediate.
Sprint Planning now has three topics - the why, the what, and the how
The Scrum Team is self-managing "meaning they internally decide who does what, when, and how." Anyhow that term was defined by Richard Hackman, as described on the LeSS website.
Feedback is dead, long live collaboration on what to do next.
The word "consistency" has made an appearance. "Working in Sprints at a sustainable pace improves the Scrum Team’s focus and consistency."