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The importance of Scrum Values

Many times, we can find large lists of values on walls or on websites of organizations. Values that are only spoken, but not put into practice.

The scrum values

The scrum values one by one : Courage, Focus, Commitment, Respect and Openness

It is interesting that the same thing occurs within a Scrum Team. The team may use Scrum but no one remembers the values of Scrum, nor does anyone promote these values.  This can lead to Scrum not being applied correctly and, therefore, cannot help organizations to maximize value delivery from Sprint to Sprint.

Instead, when we focus on Scrum values as they are: courage, respect, focus, commitment and openness. This brings us to the next step, the Scrum pillars that are transparency, inspection and adaptation and this makes everything come alive and create an environment of trust for all.

SCRUM VALUES 

Let's take a look at Scrum values one by one.
(visual 1 : Courage, Focus, Commitment, Respect, Openness)

 

What can we observe if we don't adopt Scrum values?


Commitment


Many teams communicated that they were doing well and that they didn't need a retrospective.
Everything and everyone can improve. The retrospective (is the heart of empiricism) is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create an improvement plan that will introduce it for the next Sprint. If this is not done, we fall into a trap of lack of improvement and we become stagnate.

Courage


In most of the teams I worked with, I noticed that the concept of a Sprint Review is turned into a report meeting (Sprint Report). And how difficult it was to change this.
The Sprint Review is carried out at the end of the Sprint for the inspection of the increase and adaptation of the Product Backlog. During this event, the Scrum Team and stakeholders collaborate on what was done in the Sprint. It is important to clarify that this event is not a monitoring and control session as many teams do, but, an opportunity to inspect the increment and encourage collaboration. The team has to have the courage to manifest this because by not running the Review properly, a valuable inspection and adaptation opportunity is lost.


Focus

Can you imagine that anyone other than the development team can participate in the Daily event? Does it sound familiar to you? I have heard this and seen it a lot.
Let's clarify the concept of the Daily. This event is used by the development team to inspect progress towards achieving the Sprint Goal, and see the tendency of the team to complete the work to reach the Sprint Goal. This event allows the team to optimize the probability to reach their goal. What would happen if we run the Daily poorly? How would that be? Let's see some cases:
●    Some days it is not done because of certain problems
●    The Scrum Master is not available
●    Missing a person from the team who cannot come
●    The scrum Master starts directing the Daily
●    etc.

The Daily executed correctly optimizes the team's focus on achieving its objectives.
Note: Remember that the Scrum Master can only attend the Daily to ensure that this event takes place.

Openness


You can see how the automatic conversion is done during a process of digital transformation from a Project Manager to a Scrum Master, many organizations comment that they are the best person to carry out this role, since they have experience in working with teams and many are leaders. But, the reality is that we often realize this is a mistake and often fails.
What happens when a Project Manager is asked to act in a Scrum Master role (often with little training)?
Many Scrum Masters who have been Project Managers for many years, continue with that hierarchy mentality and reporting to their Senior Managers, in addition to continuing to manage the work. This can only get worse, such as holding the Scrum Master responsible for work when the objectives are not met. And if the Scrum Master is well received by the team, you can start hiding certain information from the Scrum Master and from the team. This can cause you to lose the opportunity for self-organization of the team, since neither the Scrum Master nor the development team are being open with the organization in regards to the situation at hand.


Respect


As indicated in the Scrum guide, the Product Owner is the only person responsible for managing the Product Backlog. For the Product Owner to succeed, it is important that the entire company respects its decisions. To do this, the Product Owner must have deep business knowledge, since otherwise, most decisions would be taken from other tiers of Management. Any inspection and adaptation during the Sprint can become a challenge. Which leads to the decrease in the delivery of value due to lack of decision-making about the product.


Conclusion


If there is something about Scrum that doesn't work and you can't see how to deal with it, stop for a few minutes and think about Scrum values. If the team and the organization do not know, explain them carefully. Values are the fundamental basis for the correct execution of Scrum and to achieve self-organization at the organizational level as well as at the team level.