Our work should ideally be driven by the Values and guided by the Principles. What are these? Let’s take a look below:
Scrum Values
These value are important for all teams irrespective of methodology they use
WHAT ARE SCRUM VALUES?
The Scrum Values of Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect and Courage help Scrum Team members to swarm, perform, connect, bond, thrive and be effective in their work.
COMMITMENT
Without commitment, not much is achieved. Lack of understanding of commitment is the reason why many Agile teams in the world are not as effective as they could be. They take in much more work than they can finish resulting in not finishing their work on time. Anti patterns set in that are difficult to change, team members question efficacy of Scrum. There is no data that supports effectiveness in the team due to lack of proper velocity, predictability, etc. The burndowns look messy, and all the paraphernalia of struggling teams show up.
Commitment brings a force, it brings power. Just like when a river is committed to the two banks, it has a force, you can generate electricity through it. In the same way when a team is committed to a certain way of working, of delivering their work on time, it empowers the team and makes them a force in the value delivery flow. It helps the team be healthier, happier, more successful. Such teams are a delight to behold and they take pride in their work.
FOCUS
Scrum, implemented wisely, allows you to focus on committed work. Sincere commitment brings value. A focused Scrum Team works towards delivering to their sprint commitments. They only work on items they committed to deliver during the Sprint planning. Anything that a team works on that was not committed is a distraction, unless it has been included into the scope for the current sprint in an Agile manner.
OPENNESS
If you notice, many teams that do not finish their work on time or if the quality of their work is not good enough, is because they are not open about their work. It is not visible. Many times, more work is pushed under the table to the team members who have already committed to deliver to their capacity in the beginning of the sprint.
Making all work visible and delivering to your capacity by focusing on what was committed helps the team protect itself. Once all the stakeholders understand the team’s capacity and that the team delivers consistently on highest valued items in a given sprint, they will respect the team for what it is trying to achieve and give them space so they can self-organize and succeed.
RESPECT
People’s behaviors are shaped by their experiences in life. The understanding of this point helps bring out compassion in interacting with fellow human beings. Out of that compassion comes respect. And out of that mutual respect for each other, strong bonding happens.
COURAGE
As human beings, it is very important for us to understand that respect and courage must go hand in hand. Scrum framework lays the foundation for a team to be able to commit to their capacity, to stay focused on delivering to those commitments, to be open about their impediments and make all work visible, to learn to respect and receive respect from one another, and have the courage to challenge the status quo.
As human beings, we should have the courage to leave the table when respect is no longer being served.
