[ refer to post: ‘I am the Scrum Master’ for index of all Scrum posts ]

There are five words that speak clearly to the values of Scrum

• Focus

• Courage

• Openness

• Commitment

• Respect

Really these are five great values to live most of your life by … but we can talk more about that at a later date!

Let’s break these out:

Focus

One of my favorite aspects of the Scrum process is how clearly all the roles are defined.  Whether Team Member, Scrum Master, Product Owner, or Stakeholder, there are clear expectations for how you fulfill your role.  To successfully run a Scrum each of those individuals (or teams for the Team Members) must remain focused on their responsibilities so that they can support the others completely.

• Team Members focus on delivering a product

• Product Owners focus on envisioning a product

• Scrum Masters focus on delivering an effective team

• Stakeholders focus on  expectations

Courage

Working in any type of team environment comes with many challenges but also benefits.  Folks may not always be on the same page.  Product Owners may take to micromanaging Team Members or Team Members may take to not completing their tasks.  To keep conflict at a minimum, courage is a required value in Scrum.  Each individual in the Scrum Team needs courage to stand up to others to keep every person accountable for their respective role.  This is also where the Scrum Master comes into play big time.  If members of the Scrum Team don’t have a clear understanding of their boundaries, the Scrum Master must have the courage to take a stand for the process.

Openness

Two ceremonies come to mind right away when talking about openness: Daily Scrum and Retrospective.  Both of these ceremonies deal with creating awareness for all other Team Members.  The Daily Scrum specifically for the Sprint and the Retrospective specifically for the Team Members team.  Team Members must have a certain level of openness to convey concerns and praises to make each Sprint and the team more effective.  When openness is not valued, conflict arises, and then it takes someone with courage to bring forward the lack of openness.

Commitment

This… is… the… most… important… value…

The entire Scrum Team must be committed to the Scrum.  This includes everything … team, roles, responsibilities, process … everything.

If the Team Members are not committed to completing their tasks by the Sprint Review, the whole process falls apart.

If the Product Owner is not committed to having clear prioritized stories by the Sprint Planning, the whole process falls apart.

If the Scrum Master is not committed to knowing and sharing Scrum with the Scrum Team, the whole process falls apart.

Respect

Again, Scrum comes with some clear boundaries.  One of those boundaries is that while the Product Owner owns the Stories (business deliverables) and their priorities, the Team Members own the implementation details of those stories.

Product Owner must respect the Team Member’s ability to implement a story in the way they deem most effective.

Team Members must respect the Product Owner’s ability to have a clear vision at the beginning of every Sprint.

The moment one of these folks lose respect (or trust) in another member of the Scrum Team, additional overhead creeps into the process.  Product Owner micromanaging the development of tasks as well as Team Members critiquing the Product Owner’s story priorities behind their back, is not good for morale.

This is a tough value to keep in check as the Scrum Master as the Scrum Master is neutral on all personality conflicts and is married to the preaching of Scrum process and these values.