Scrum Values

The Scrum Guide – 2020

Successful use of Scrum depends on people becoming more proficient in living five values:

Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage

The Scrum Team commits to achieving its goals and to supporting each other. Their primary focus is on the work of the Sprint to make the best possible progress toward these goals. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders are open about the work and the challenges. Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people, and are respected as such by the people with whom they work. The Scrum Team members have the courage to do the right thing, to work on tough problems.

These values give direction to the Scrum Team with regard to their work, actions, and behavior. The decisions that are made, the steps taken, and the way Scrum is used should reinforce these values, not diminish or undermine them. The Scrum Team members learn and explore the values as they work with the Scrum events and artifacts. When these values are embodied by the Scrum Team and the people they work with, the empirical Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life building trust.

© 2020 Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland

Commentary

Why are Scrum Values Important?

Many readers of the Guide wonder why this short section about behavioural traits was added. As if such values were not desired when other frameworks, and methodologies are applied. However, Scrum heavily relies on these values. That is to say, Scrum puts the responsibility on the shoulders of Scrum Teams for designing a product, managing product delivery, managing conflicts, designing a solution, delivering increments and a suitable product, removing impediments, etc. Team members must ‘grow up’, feel their own responsibility for the outcome, act with a healthy attitude of ownership and help each other to achieve their best. In contrast, in the traditional old-school project management approach project members are specialists, working in separate groups, focusing on their own individual tasks and seeking leadership and supervision.

There is no efficient teamwork without trust and psychological safety.

Since these values are vital for the success of a Scrum Team, the Scrum Master has a huge responsibility in identifying whether the values are present and consistent. When employers seek Scrum Masters with good skills in motivating people and establishing a good atmosphere, we can expect that the Scrum values need to be uplifted. In fact, it is not uncommon that Developers find the Scrum Master’s communication style demotivating and alienating. This is a warning for future Scrum Masters: anyone can facilitate meetings and chase problems, this is not where your work matters. If you demotivate your team your added value is negative, multiplied by the headcount of your teams.

Commitment

In the early versions of the Guide, as part of the Sprint Planning, the Development Team (who are the “Developers” today) was expected to commit to meeting the Sprint Goal. Managers often interpreted this rule as if the developers made a commitment to deliver all Product Backlog Items selected for the Sprint. In the recent versions (since 2017), the Development Team forecasts what it can deliver. This change reflects the acceptance of uncertainty and removes the unfair burden from the Developers. It is consistent with the idea of ’empiricism’: we cannot be entirely sure that the Sprint Plan is executable. Thus the team cannot promise something that they cannot guarantee. However, meeting the Sprint Goal (which does not require implementing all selected product backlog items) is usually feasible. Commitment still stays as a value in this sense and the broader sense as well. Team members must know that working for 8 hours a day is not the same as working toward a goal. That is to say, with a goal in mind we make better decisions and set our priorities accordingly. We need to be interested in the outcome, use the resources available to us, and grow our ‘Circle of Influence’.

Courage

Having courage as a Scrum value does not mean that only the brave-hearted can be part of a Scrum Team. However, solving complex problems and walking uncharted paths is intrinsic to Agile. We have to accept that a brand-new design may not work out the way we expected. But without these experiments, our product will be mediocre at best. Courage is an organizational value as well, an attitude to encourage people to speak up, identify issues, and take the risk to “do the right thing”. It is important to develop a sense for distinguishing the act of signalling risks, problems, and missed opportunities from toxic behaviour and troublemaking. It is important to understand that making constructive criticism completely differs from negativity. There are strong links between courage and other values. For instance, discouraged people will not feel committed. The lack of courage undermines openness since openness bears risks. An oppressive environment questions respect: even if team members respect each other they may not feel valued by their organization and their leaders. If we fail to channel the knowledge, experience and energy of the team members into the development process, we miss the chance of excellence.

Focus

When a team has an incoherent set of tasks and only partially concentrates its efforts on a goal, it lacks focus. Context switching consumes time and energy, the more we have to do it, the less work we can accomplish. The lack of focus means a loss of opportunities in interactions and ultimately deteriorates commitment, too. In a real-world scenario, unfortunately, nothing guarantees that a team can maintain a single focus, undisturbed, for a long time. Organizations must sacrifice their resources on multiple initiatives in parallel which sometimes leads to conflicting interests. Good Sprint Goals help maintain focus. This value underpins two Agile axioms: 1. Frequent context-switching kills our efficiency, and 2. Stop starting, start Finishing.

Openness

Transparency is a pillar of Scrum, thus, there is nothing surprising in seeing openness among the important values. While Scrum has “built-in” mechanisms for fostering transparency, it is hardly achievable without the openness of the participants. Openness is a two-way street, it also includes an open mind for accepting feedback and other people’s ideas. Furthermore, it is hard to be committed to the goal of a team without upholding openness around our common issues.

Respect

In today’s corporate environment, respectful behaviour is one of the minimum requirements for employees. We cannot expect people to efficiently work together with bullies. Do not think of extreme cases! It is important to understand that people with seemingly good manners can also show signs of disrespect. For instance, through the consistent assertion of seniority, pointless questioning of other people’s decisions, and through many other forms of micro-aggression. On the other hand, respect is not just a value for individuals. Team members need trust and respect from the organization. Team members should respect other colleagues and leaders in the organization. With respect in place, it is easier to handle conflict, it is easier to take risks and apply courage, easier to accept that we apply different approaches to problem-solving.

Since Scrum values cannot be achieved and maintained through mechanically applied processes, the Scrum Master must learn how to coach and mentor team members and stakeholders in their journey.

Key Takeaways

• Scrum values are Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage.
• Incompatible with Scrum: tricking, hiding, blaming, scolding, bullying, threatening, etc.
• For test takers: recall your idealised, impeccable corporate etiquette and best manners to assess which answer might be correct. Remember that management still involves objective, constructive, polite feedback to address inadequate performance, mistakes, bad decisions, etc., as long as it is within the five Scrum values.

External Content: Scrum.org and Growing Scrum Masters on Scrum Values

Let’s watch two YouTube videos with very different takes on the five values. Both will bring new perspectives to our understanding.

The Scrum Guide – 2017

Scrum Values

When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and build trust for everyone. The Scrum Team members learn and explore those values as they work with the Scrum roles, events, and artifacts. Successful use of Scrum depends on people becoming more proficient in living these five values. People personally commit to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team members have courage to do the right thing and work on tough problems. Everyone focuses on the work of the Sprint and the goals of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders agree to be open about all the work and the challenges with performing the work. Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people.

©2017 Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland.

It is worth highlighting the five Scrum values for a better understanding. The definitions are quotes from the Guide without a change!

• Commitment: “People personally commit to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team.”
• Courage: “The Scrum Team members have the courage to do the right thing and work on tough problems.”
• Focus: “Everyone focuses on the work of the Sprint and the goals of the Scrum Team.”
• Openness: “The Scrum Team and its stakeholders agree to be open about all the work and the challenges with performing the work.“
• Respect: “Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people.”

The 2010 version had no corresponding chapter. The authors introduced it in 2016.