Separating the 'What?' from the 'How?' is a Powerful Approach for Achieving Goals

Greetings fellow Agilists -

A key principle of Scrum is separating the 'what?' from the 'how?' when defining and ultimately achieving organizational goals. The "what" (the goal) is defined by business and the "how" is performed by the technology teams.

For the "What", ask yourself:

-> What are we trying to achieve as a team? Does this align to a strategic vision?

= the goal, business intent, or desired outcome.

The Product or Business Owner defines the "what?", or the goal, with stakeholders. These goals should be actionable and measurable, including the specific time period, problem, or opportunity, requirements / acceptance criteria, and success metrics. This information is curated with business stakeholders and then discussed with the team for inclusion in the sprint.

For the "How?", ask:

-> How can we achieve it?

= the Team Members identify the services, products, or tools in which they will use to achieve the goal, understanding there may be experimentation, rapid prototyping, and failing fast.

Cross-functional Team Members are trusted to self-organize, hypothesize, and inspect their work based upon the agreed-upon goals. Solutions are validated frequently against acceptance criteria and Definition of Done and adjusted as necessary.

The Scrum Master, or a similar facilitator role, guides Team Members and removes impediments. By implementing core Scrum events, the Team is able to frequently inspect their progress and adapt requirements as needed.

Examples:

1. The Business: "Our customers want faster payment transfers."; Technology: "We can refine our APIs to improve speed; will test and report back."
2. The Business: "Our sales teams needs a more user friendly UI."; CX & Technology: "We will hold Empathy interviews to identify patterns and create design principles which are technically feasible."

This approach derives from the Empirical Process Control theory, or Empiricism, the core Scrum philosophy which promotes learning by doing and adapting as needed, while not prescribing the ways things are done.

See more details here: Your Guide to Empirical Process Control in Scrum Teams | Scrum Alliance