Jordan Job

Director of Project Management at a leading fintech. Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org. Ex-software engineer.

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My Scrum Diagram

By 26 Comments

A full resolution copy is available at the bottom of this post

Background

Several months ago I was teaching Scrum to someone and tried finding a good, simple Scrum diagram to aid in the conversation. There were many diagrams available, but they all seemed to have at least one of these problems:

  • Over-complicated
  • Over-simplified
  • Couldn’t be easily reproduced on a whiteboard
  • Didn’t accurately represent Scrum’s three roles, five events, and three artifacts according to the latest version of the Scrum Guide
  • Ugly
  • Not free to use

So I sat down at my desk and thought through how I would explain Scrum to someone. As that conversation played itself out in my head, I drew out the parts of Scrum as they were discussed while trying to avoid the problems mentioned above. Then I drew it on a whiteboard and took some pictures:

Although it was still ugly, it represented just the basics of Scrum and helped out when I taught Scrum. I used that sequence of Scrum pictures a few times, but nothing else happened with it until Erik Weber asked if he could send it to a graphics designer. The result we got back from the designer was usable, but we wanted to make some more tweaks to it so I took the new graphic, redrew it from the ground up using Pixelmator, and made some modifications.

The Scrum Diagram

The diagram below is accurate according to the July 2017 version of the Scrum Guide and free to use distribute so long as it is attributed to my website and it is used in the context of accurately portraying Scrum as described in the Scrum Guide. If you publish the diagram on a public-facing website, you must have an active link to my website. This allows search engines to properly rank this page and allows more people to find the diagram! 

 Any uses without attribution must obtain permission from me before using.

Any changes that I make in the future will be indicated by an incremented version number.

A full resolution copy (3000x2250px) is available below (click it to view the full resolution). Please contact me if you would like the full sequence shown in the GIF or if you would like the original Pixelmator file to edit.

Comments

  1. Chad Kanyer says

    Hey Jordan!

    I love your site, and would like to include your simple Scrum diagram in something I’m writing right now. It’s about applying scrum to our personal goal-setting/purpose pursuits. At a certain point, I give less experienced readers a simple breakdown of the Scrum process in layman’s terms. I’ll be sure to cite your page — hopefully it drives some traffic to it.

    I want to make sure you’re comfortable with that before I proceed, and also thought it’d be cool to connect with other people who are striving to create and share re. Agile/Scrum.

    Thanks!
    Chad

    Reply

    • Jordan Job says

      Hey, Ken. Several of the teams I’ve worked with recently have had some remote team members as well. They tried a few of the planning poker apps available, but ultimately they found it easier (and more reliable) to just use the tools they already had. When they played a round of planning poker, remote team members would send their estimates in an instant message to either the facilitator or whoever was sharing their screen with a group. When everyone (including people in the room) had their estimates ready, people in the room would reveal their cards while someone would bring up the messages from the remote team members. The facilitator would quickly go around the room and state the name of each person as well as their estimate.

      Reply

  4. Kevin Pollard says

    Good morning Jordan
    May I use your diagram in an article I write for our colleges news letter please?
    We have just started using Agile and scrum and your diagram helps to explain what this all means.
    Thank you in anticipation
    Kevin

    Reply

  5. Jacqueline Glover says

    Hi Jordan – would it be possible to have a revised version of the “Diagram w/o Arrows of DoD” — with Product Owner label changed to Project Manager and Dev Team label changed to BI / DM

    We use sprints for customer implementation so those changes would really help build the picture for my team. If you are able to do this (mucho thanks) and please email the image to me directly — thank you.

    Reply

    • Jordan Job says

      Hi, Jacqueline. My diagram portrays Scrum. There is no role called project manager in Scrum, and the Development Team should include whatever skills are necessary to develop solutions for the problems the Scrum team is solving. Scrum intentionally distributes decision making responsibilities across the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Team.

      Instead of seeking to rename the roles of Scrum, I would encourage you to have a conversation with your team about why the names of roles in Scrum are different than the positions currently on your team, and what that might mean for your team if you want to successfully apply Scrum.

      Reply

  6. Aju says

    Good morning Jordan
    May I use your diagram in a PPT that is internal to my organisation?
    I saw your diagram while searching for Free SCRUM Diagrams, this really helps to explain what this all means.

    Reply

  7. Peter says

    Hi Jordan, I just wanted to say thanks for creating and sharing this diagram. I think it’s the best diagram of Scrum I’ve seen.

    Reply

  9. Jeff Greenwood says

    Hi Jordan,
    I’m providing an Agile 101 type overview for some of the newer members of our team. I’d like to use your scrum diagram. It nicely pulls together roles, artifacts, and events into a single, understandable visual. The overview will be for internal use only.

    Ok with you?

    Regards,
    Jeff

    PS Please pass along my best to Dan Sloan if you happen to see him. We met back in 2014 during my initial Agile training.

    Reply

  10. Victor Loke says

    Hi Jordan,

    I’d like to thank you for this amazing diagram. I use it regularly with my internal training when forming new Scrum teams. It is the most succinct and pleasant diagrams that is floating on the Internet today.

    I am looking to publish an article on the local news around coaching in Agile/Scrum, and it would be ideal to include your diagram for illustrative purposes. Would this be all right with you? In case you are agreeable, do let me know how I may credit you as well.

    Thanks ahead!

    Regards,
    Victor

    Reply

    • Jordan Job says

      Thanks, Victor! Glad to hear it’s been useful for you. That’s awesome you’re looking to post an article in your local news. I’d love to check it out once you get it published!

      If your article will be publically posted online and you include my diagram, please include a link back to this page near the diagram (it lets search engines know where the diagram originally came from). Thanks!

      Reply

  11. Mary says

    Thank you so much for the awesome Scrum diagram. Will you be updating this to be in compliance with the 2020 Scrum Guide? The main changes I see is that “Development Team” needs to be changed to “Developers” and then if you want to add the the commitments to the artifacts (e.g. move Definition of Done to the Increment and add Sprint goal to Sprint Backlog add Product Goal to Product Backlog)?

    Reply

    • Jordan Job says

      Hi, Mary! I will definitely be updating my diagram to reflect the new language in the Scrum Guide! I’m hoping to get an updated version done during the holidays 🙂

      Reply

  12. Aleksey Tsalolikhin says

    Hi Jordan,

    Beautiful diagram!

    Any plans to update it for Scrum Guide 2020? For example, “development team” -> “developers”.

    Reply

    • Aleksey Tsalolikhin says

      P.S. That was a question. So should have added a ?

      Thanks again for a such a great diagram.

      Best,
      Aleksey

      Reply

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