True leadership is a representation of the way you work with your team to achieve goals. A true leader makes an effort to help develop their team's skills so they can reach their full potential. They lead by example and establish strong, trusting relationships to ensure success within the team and for the organization as a whole.

The output of a Sprint is a usable Product Increment. "Usable" means the stakeholders can see the product working as if it were released. The increment is the verified sum of all the Product Backlog Items completed during a sprint, plus all previous increments produced in the current and past sprints. Because of this, the increment needs to be integrated with the ones produced in past sprints. It must be in usable condition, regardless of whether the Product Owner decides to release it or not. The Product Owner is responsible for deciding when to release the Product Increment.

A new Sprint starts immediately after the conclusion of the previous sprint, and each Sprint typically begins with Sprint Planning and ends with Sprint Review & Sprint Retrospective.

According to the Scrum Guide, “The Development Team is responsible for all estimates”.

The Scrum Guide states that the Scrum framework is designed to deliver products of the highest possible value. It also states that “the Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the Development Team” (guide). For the Product Owner to be able to decide what Product Backlog Items will maximize the value, he or she has to take into account what it will cost to deliver these items.

We already concluded that Scrum is a framework that is suited for complex work. We also concluded that in this domain the best estimates are made by those that perform the actual work. The Scrum Guide agrees and is very clear on this: “The Development Team is responsible for all estimates. The Product Owner may influence the Development Team by helping it understand and select trade-offs, but the people who will perform the work make the final estimate.”

Attendance is not limited to the Scrum Team. When it’s needed, for example, for refinement, the Scrum Team can invite SMEs to provide additional information. This could also include users, the client, or any other stakeholder. This makes the event more engaging, as well as shows you value the opinion of others.

According to the 2017 Scrum Guide:

Scrum Teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. Self-organizing teams choose how best to accomplish their work, rather than being directed by others outside the team. Cross-functional teams have all competencies needed to accomplish the work without depending on others not part of the team.

In 2020 it has been changed to:

Scrum Teams are cross-functional, meaning the members have all the skills necessary to create value for each Sprint. They are also self-managing, meaning they internally decide who does what, when, and how.