The 5 Scrum Values: A Comprehensive Guide for Tech Leaders

According to this report, 78% of people who used Scrum will recommend this methodology to their colleagues and other companies. Effective project management is more critical than ever in today's fast-paced tech world. With its focus on iterative progress, collaboration, and adaptability, Scrum is a robust framework for managing complex projects. Understanding and applying Scrum's values can significantly enhance your team's performance and job satisfaction.

Are you a delivery manager, product manager, project manager, or CTO looking to improve your team's productivity and efficiency? If so, understanding Scrum's core values, pillars, and principles can be a game-changer. This article will delve into the heart of Scrum, a popular Agile framework, and explain why these values are crucial for your team's success.

What is Scrum?

Scrum is an Agile project management framework emphasizing flexibility, collaboration, and customer satisfaction. It's designed to manage and control complex software and product development using iterative and incremental practices.

Scrum breaks down large projects into smaller, manageable chunks known as "sprints." Each Sprint is a time-boxed period, usually lasting between one to four weeks, during which a specific set of tasks must be completed based on their priority.

At the start of each Sprint, the team holds a planning meeting to determine the sprint backlog, i.e., the tasks to be completed during the Sprint. Each day of the Sprint begins with a daily Scrum (or stand-up) meeting to discuss progress and plan for the day.

At the end of the Sprint, the team reviews the work completed and presents it to stakeholders in a sprint review meeting. This is followed by a sprint retrospective meeting where the team reflects on the sprint process to identify improvements for the next Sprint.

Scrum encourages frequent inspection and adaptation, allowing teams to respond quickly to changes, reduce risk, and ensure that the developed product or software aligns with customer needs and expectations. It also promotes a collaborative environment where team members collectively make decisions and share responsibility for the project's success.

Why Scrum?

Scrum offers numerous benefits for various professionals involved in a project:

For Developers

Scrum provides a clear structure and immediate feedback and empowers developers, boosting their efficiency and morale.

For Project Managers

Scrum offers greater control and visibility over the project's progress, promotes improved communication, and enables efficient resource management.

For Product Owners

Scrum ensures high customer satisfaction, provides flexibility to adapt to changing needs, and helps mitigate risks by allowing early and frequent feedback.

For Stakeholders

Scrum's transparency keeps stakeholders informed about the project's progress, ensures continuous value delivery, and reduces the risk of project failure.

General Scrum Benefits

Scrum offers many benefits that can enhance a project's overall productivity and success. Here are some general benefits that Scrum brings to the table:

• Improved Product Quality. Scrum's iterative approach allows regular checks and improvements, ensuring a high-quality end product.
• Faster Delivery. By breaking down the project into sprints, Scrum enables speedier delivery of usable features to the customer.
• Increased Flexibility. Scrum allows for changes and adjustments throughout the project, making it easier to adapt to changing requirements or market conditions.
• Enhanced Customer Satisfaction. Scrum can significantly improve customer satisfaction with regular deliveries of usable features and the ability to incorporate customer feedback throughout the project.
• Reduced Risk. Regular feedback, transparency, and the ability to make changes reduce the risk of project failure or deviation from customer needs.
• Boosted Morale. The collaborative and empowering nature of Scrum can boost team morale and motivation, leading to increased productivity.
• Better Stakeholder Engagement. Regular reviews and transparency keep stakeholders engaged and informed throughout the project.

Embracing Scrum can lead to more efficient processes, better products, and happier teams and customers. Whether you're a developer, project manager, product owner, or stakeholder, incorporating Scrum into your project management approach can significantly improve your project outcomes.

Scrum is a robust Agile framework that brings substantial benefits to all stakeholders involved in a project. By fostering clear communication, promoting transparency, and providing a flexible yet structured approach, Scrum enhances productivity, mitigates risks, and ultimately leads to high-quality deliverables that meet customer expectations. Whether you're a developer, project manager, product owner, or stakeholder, embracing Scrum can significantly improve your project outcomes.

3 Scrum Pillars

Scrum is built on three pillars: Transparency, Inspection, and Adaptation. These pillars are the backbone of any Scrum project, guiding the team's approach to the work.

Transparency

Transparency is a fundamental pillar of Scrum that ensures all aspects of the project are visible to everyone involved. This includes not just the progress of the work but also the challenges, changes, and decisions made throughout the project.

What Does Transparency Mean in Scrum?

In the Scrum environment, transparency is about making every part of the process straightforward for everyone on the Scrum Team. This includes the plan for each Sprint, the progress of the work, and the planned input and outcome. Transparency is practiced not just during daily meetings but at all times. Discussing concerns immediately allows the team to find better solutions together quickly.

Transparency also extends to Scrum events. Meetings like the daily Scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective are opportunities for the team to share updates, discuss issues, and make collective decisions. Creating an environment that encourages people to exchange information and ideas freely without fear of being judged is essential. This includes sharing the actual state of the product with all stakeholders, even clients, and not withholding any negative information.

However, transparency in Scrum is about more than reporting and sharing what everyone's doing. The focus should be on the outcome and the value for the user. It's about checking whether the team is going in the right direction to meet the goal and provide value to the user.

Transparency in Scrum is crucial for maintaining alignment among team members, making informed decisions, and building trust with stakeholders. By fostering transparency, teams can work more effectively and deliver better results.

Inspection

Inspection is a crucial pillar of Scrum that involves regularly checking the project's progress and the quality of the work. It's not just about finding problems but also about identifying opportunities for improvement.

What Does Inspection Mean in Scrum?

In Scrum, inspection involves regularly examining the progress toward the agreed product and current sprint goals. This thorough and frequent process creates early visibility into challenges in the product increment or the development process.

The most concentrated moments of inspection happen during the five events of Scrum: the Sprint, sprint planning, daily Scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective. However, assessment can occur anytime during development, as soon as there is reason to believe it might be necessary.

For example, during the sprint review, the team inspects the Increment to ensure it meets the definition of "Done." They also review the product backlog to ensure it reflects the current understanding of the project. Similarly, during the sprint retrospective, the team inspects their processes, looking for ways to improve their efficiency and effectiveness in the next Sprint.

Inspection in Scrum is crucial for maintaining the quality of work, identifying issues early, and continuously improving the team's performance. By fostering a culture of regular inspection, teams can ensure they are always moving in the right direction and delivering value to the customer.

Adaptation

Adaptation is a crucial pillar of Scrum that involves making necessary changes when something is not working or the project deviates from the desired outcome. The goal is to minimize further deviation and realign the project with its objectives.

What Does Adaptation Mean in Scrum?

In Scrum, adaptation is about adjusting to minimize deviations to acceptable limits concerning agreed goals. It involves changing the course of action based on the insights gained from the transparency and inspection pillars of Scrum.

For instance, if the team identifies an issue during the daily Scrum or Sprint review, they adapt by updating the Sprint or product backlog. If the team identifies a process issue during the sprint retrospective, they adapt by agreeing on process improvements for the next Sprint.

Adaptation can occur during the Sprint when the team realizes that changes are necessary to meet the sprint goal. This could be due to changes in the project requirements, unforeseen challenges, or new insights gained during the Sprint.

Adaptation in Scrum is crucial for maintaining the relevance and value of the work, adjusting to changes, and continuously improving the team's performance. By fostering a culture of regular adaptation, teams can ensure they are always moving in the right direction and delivering value to the customer.

5 Scrum Values

The effectiveness of Scrum lies in its five core values: Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness, and Respect. These values guide the behavior and decisions of the Scrum team.

Commitment

In Scrum, commitment is about every team member is dedicated to the success of the project and the team. This means not just committing to complete their tasks but also committing to the team's goals and each other. For example, a developer might commit to completing a particular user story by the end of the Sprint while the team commits to delivering a potentially shippable increment.

Commitment in Scrum is about the team's dedication to achieving the project's goals and supporting each other. For example, a developer might commit to completing a particular user story by the end of the Sprint. In contrast, the team commits to delivering a potentially shippable increment.

With the 2020 release of the Scrum Guide, Commitments were added for each artifact. The commitments provide a nice, structural way to describe some of the critical characteristics of each artifact. This change is intended to clarify and make the Scrum Guide simpler to read and use. The commitments are the Product Goal for the Product Backlog, the Sprint Goal for the Sprint Backlog, and the Definition of Done for the Increment.

Commitment in Scrum is crucial for maintaining the team's focus and motivation and ensuring the project's successful delivery. By fostering a culture of commitment, teams can ensure they are always moving in the right direction and delivering value to the customer.

Focus

In Scrum, the focus is on everyone concentrating on their work and the goals of Sprint. This means staying focused on other tasks or issues outside Sprint's current goal.

Focus in Scrum is about the team's dedication to the tasks at hand and the goals of the Sprint. For example, a team focuses only on the user stories in the sprint backlog and starts work on other stories once the current ones are done. This ensures that the team's energy and attention are directed towards essential tasks, leading to more efficient and practical work.

In Scrum, the focus is not just on individual concentration but also on the team's collective focus on the sprint goal. This collaborative focus helps the team to work together more effectively, aligning their efforts towards a common objective.

By fostering a focused culture, Scrum teams can ensure they work effectively towards their sprint goals, leading to better project outcomes and higher customer satisfaction.

Courage

In Scrum, courage is about the team's ability to face challenges, question the status quo, and make difficult decisions that can impact the project's success. This means being bold and saying no, asking for help, or trying new things that could improve the team's performance and the project's outcome.

Courage in Scrum is about the team's mental and moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. For example, a team shows courage by feeling safe and comfortable in saying no to low-value features, asking for help when needed, accepting challenges, or trying new things that could improve their work. This ensures that the team is confident in questioning the status quo if it affects their ability to succeed.

In the context of Scrum, courage is not just about individual bravery but also about the team's collective courage to face challenges and make difficult decisions. This collective courage helps the team to work together more effectively, aligning their efforts towards a common objective.

By fostering a culture of courage, Scrum teams can ensure they work effectively towards their sprint goals, leading to better project outcomes and higher customer satisfaction. Courage also helps the team eliminate impediments and operate at total capacity, providing a safe environment for all team members.

In different Scrum roles, courage takes on various forms. For a Product Owner, courage might mean trusting the Development Team even when they anticipate potential failures or saying "no" to low-value features. For the Development Team, courage could mean refusing to compromise on quality under pressure or bringing progress and problems to the forefront rather than hiding them. For a Scrum Master, fostering team courage could mean creating a safe environment for team members to have difficult conversations or standing up to stakeholders to avoid side projects or changes during the Sprint.

Courage is essential in Scrum; every member needs it at every project stage. It allows the team to do the right thing, work on challenging problems, and support each other in taking informed risks. This leads to decision-making, innovation, and thinking outside the box, which leads to the development of great products that satisfy users and meet or exceed market expectations.

Openness

Openness in Scrum is about the team members being transparent about their work, the challenges they face, and the lessons they learn. This involves being candid about progress, sharing problems and obstacles, and being receptive to giving and receiving feedback. For instance, during the daily Scrum, team members are open about what they accomplished, what they plan to do next, and any obstacles they face.

In Scrum, openness is not just about individual transparency but also about the team's collective openness about the work and the challenges associated with it. This collective openness allows the team to make the most progress in the shortest time possible. It enables the identification and resolution of problems in a timely manner, which can't happen if team members aren't forthcoming about issues or roadblocks they're experiencing. Moreover, team members must be open to working with their colleagues and view them as valuable contributors to the success of the project.

By promoting an open culture, Scrum teams can ensure they work effectively towards their sprint goals. This leads to better project outcomes and higher customer satisfaction. One of the best ways for Scrum masters to promote openness is by being transparent with their teams. Delivering honest feedback during daily Scrum meetings is not only vital to making necessary adjustments but will also encourage honesty and openness in return from team members.

Respect

Respect in Scrum is about acknowledging and valuing the unique skills, opinions, and contributions of each team member. This respect extends to all roles within the Scrum framework, including the Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers, and stakeholders. Each role must respect the others' ideas, feedback, and decisions to foster a collaborative and productive environment.

For instance, the Product Owner respects the Developers by considering their suggestions for product improvement. The Developers show respect by delivering according to the priorities set by the Product Owner in the Product Backlog. The Scrum Master, as a servant leader, fosters respect within the team by focusing on the team's health and ensuring the effective use of Scrum. They respect the Developers' decisions on how to achieve the Sprint Goal and help them work at a sustainable pace.

Respect also extends to Scrum events and artifacts. The entire Scrum team should attend the Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective and follow the timeboxing. In a respectful environment, team members tend to accept criticism and see it as an opportunity for improvement. 

An atmosphere of respect prevents tensions and conflicts between members, facilitating decision-making when working as a team. In conclusion, respect is one of the essential elements of a high-achieving team and a great-performing organization. Scrum promotes respect by including all team members in the planning and decision-making process and ensuring everyone is heard and valued.

The five Scrum values—Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness, and Respect—are essential for a Scrum team to work effectively together, navigate challenges, and deliver high-quality products.

Scrum principles vs. Scrum values

While Scrum principles and values contribute to the effective implementation of the Scrum framework, they serve different purposes and have other implications for the team. Here's a comparison:

Scrum Principles

Scrum principles are the fundamental truths that underpin the Scrum framework. They provide a theoretical foundation and guide the team's approach to the project. These principles include:

• Empirical Process Control. Scrum is based on learning from experience and making decisions based on what is known, so it emphasizes transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
• Self-Organization. Scrum teams are self-organizing, deciding who does what, when, and how.
• Collaboration. Scrum emphasizes active collaboration between the business (represented by the Product Owner) and the development team.
• Value-Based Prioritization. Work is prioritized based on the value it delivers to the customer.
• Time-Boxing. Scrum uses fixed-length sprints to create a regular rhythm of work and ensure a potentially shippable product increment at the end of each Sprint.

Scrum Values

On the other hand, Scrum values are the behavioral aspects that make the Scrum framework work effectively. They are the attitudes and beliefs that guide each team member's actions and interactions. These values include:

• Commitment. Each team member is dedicated to the success of the project and the team.
• Courage. The team is willing to face challenges, make tough decisions, and adapt to changes.
• Focus. Everyone concentrates on their work and the goals of Sprint.
• Openness. Team members are open about their work, challenges, and learnings.
• Respect. Everyone respects each other's skills, opinions, and contributions.

In summary, while Scrum principles provide the theoretical foundation for how the team should approach the project, Scrum values guide the team's behavior and interactions, helping to create a positive and effective team culture.

How to Apply Scrum Values

Applying Scrum values is about understanding them and living them in your day-to-day work. It requires a shift in mindset and culture and a commitment from every team member. Here's how you can apply each of the Scrum values:

Commitment

To foster commitment:

• Set Clear Expectations. Ensure that every team member understands their roles and responsibilities and the goals of Sprint and the project.
• Encourage Ownership. Empower team members to take ownership of their tasks and decisions.
• Recognize Effort. Acknowledge the effort and dedication of team members, which can motivate them to commit even more.

Courage

To promote courage:

• Foster a Safe Environment. Create an environment where team members can voice their opinions, make decisions, and admit mistakes.
• Encourage Risk-Taking. Allow team members to take calculated risks and support them when they do.
• Lead by Example. Show courage in your actions and decisions, which can inspire others to do the same.

Focus

To enhance focus:

• Prioritize Work. Help the team focus on the most important tasks by maintaining a well-groomed and prioritized product backlog.
• Minimize Distractions. Create a work environment that minimizes distractions and interruptions.
• Promote Time Management. Encourage team members to manage their time effectively, for example, by using time-boxing techniques.

Openness

To encourage openness:

• Promote Transparency. Be open about project progress, decisions, and challenges. Use tools that promote transparency, like a public Scrum board.
• Encourage Feedback. Foster a culture where feedback is encouraged and valued.
• Listen Actively. Show that you value openness by actively listening to others and responding thoughtfully.

Respect

To cultivate respect:

• Value Diversity. Respect and value your team members' diverse skills, experiences, and perspectives.
• Promote Equality. Treat all team members equally, and ensure everyone's voice is heard.
• Acknowledge Contributions. Recognize and appreciate each team member's contributions to the project.

Regular Scrum events, like the daily Scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective, provide opportunities to reinforce these values. Living these values daily can build a strong, effective, and harmonious Scrum team.

Conclusion

By understanding and applying the principles mentioned above, tech leaders can foster a culture that promotes efficient processes, high-quality products, and a satisfied team. Scrum is not just about following a set of rules or procedures; it's about embracing a mindset change. It requires courage to face challenges, commitment to the team's goals, focus on the tasks at hand, openness about progress and challenges, and respect for each other's skills and contributions.

When embracing Scrum, tech leaders can lead their teams to more efficient processes, better products, and happier teams and customers. If you're interested in learning more about Scrum or have any questions, feel free to contact us. We're here to help you navigate your Agile journey and achieve your project management goals.