In the 2020 version of the Scrum Guide, the Developers as one of the accountabilities in Scrum is defined as set of people that are committed to creating any aspect of a usable increment each Sprint.
In the same version of the Scrum Guide, it is mentioned that the Scrum Team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint.
A number of people have asked me if Usable, Valuable and Useful could be used interchangeably within the context of Scrum and this is my attempt to document my understanding.
The process of ideating and developing products (including software products) falls within the domain of Complex Systems. A complex system is a dynamic network of interactions, where the behaviour of the system as a whole may not be predictable based on the behaviour of its component. A model such as the Cynefin Framework which was developed by David Snowden has helped with our understanding of complexity and our approach to addressing complex real world problems.
A very long time ago, I was coaching a Scrum team where a team member was on an hourly contract and was regularly billing 70-80hrs a week. Among many other ideas that I discussed with client, I advised my client was to transition this consultant away from an hourly contract to a full time with a full-time (40hours a week) contract. With this new arrangement, my client can recruit two full time consultants instead of one person at 70-80hrs week.
