The Scrum Guide (2020)
The official definition of Scrum, written by its creators and last revised in November 2020. It is short and defines the events, artifacts and accountabilities you will hear about in sprint-based teams. Read it once so you know what the words mean before your team's own version of Scrum.
Guide
Career Growth
Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland
About 30 minutes
Beginner
Free
What it is
The Scrum Guide is the official, free definition of Scrum, written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, who created the framework. The current version is the 2020 Scrum Guide, published in November 2020, and it is available online at scrumguides.org under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 licence.
It defines:
- Accountabilities: Developers, the Product Owner and the Scrum Master.
- Events: the Sprint, Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum, the Sprint Review and the Sprint Retrospective.
- Artifacts: the Product Backlog, the Sprint Backlog and the Increment, each with a commitment (the Product Goal, the Sprint Goal and the Definition of Done).
Why read it in a first job
Many teams say they "do Scrum", and new engineers pick up the vocabulary second hand. Reading the source once, which takes about half an hour, tells you what each term actually means. For example, the guide describes the Daily Scrum as a 15-minute event for the Developers to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal, not a status report to a manager. Knowing that helps you give a useful update rather than a list of everything you touched.
What it does not tell you
The guide is deliberately minimal. It does not tell you how to write tickets, how to estimate, which tools to use or how your specific team runs its meetings. Real teams adapt Scrum, sometimes a lot, and plenty of teams use kanban or their own process instead. Treat the guide as a dictionary, then learn your team's version by watching and asking.
How to use it
- Read it once before or during your first week.
- Note which events and artifacts your team actually uses, and which it skips or renames.
- Ask your buddy or lead why the team works the way it does. The answers teach you a lot about the team's history.
Free vs paid
The guide is free. Scrum certifications exist and cost money, but you do not need one to work as an engineer on a Scrum team.
Is it worth it?
Yes, because it is short and it is the primary source. Pair it with the Atlassian Agile Coach for practical, example-led explanations of standups, estimation and retrospectives.
Common questions
Is Scrum the only way teams work? No. Kanban, Shape Up and many home-grown processes are common. The underlying ideas of short cycles, visible work and regular reflection carry across.
Is the 2020 version still current? It is the current version as of 2026-09 on the official site.
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