Notice: following is my original description of the Scrum Values. I won’t be touching this description. I have however since the inception of this description (2012) slightly updated the descriptions. Find the latest version at https://guntherverheyen.com/the-scrum-values/ and the international translations at https://thescrumvalues.org.
Find and book a seat in the planned sessions of my Scrum Pocket Class to explore “The Value in the Scrum Values” via my webshop.
Scrum is not a methodology. Scrum is a process, but of a non-repeatable kind. Scrum is a framework of rules, roles and principles. The framework helps people and organizations discover what works best for them. Their real process emerges, and is specific and fitting to their time and context. Scrum can wrap existing product development practices or render them superfluous. The benefits of Scrum are greater when complemented by improved or revised engineering, product management, people and organizational practices. The prescriptions of Scrum have been limited to the essence. Every element of Scrum has a goal. Changing the core design of Scrum, leaving out elements, not playing the game by its base rules, covers up problems and limits the benefit of Scrum and any additions on Scrum, up to the level of making it utterly useless.
Less known than the process of Scrum and probably under-highlighted, but therefore not less important, are the core Scrum Values upon which the framework is based: Commitment – Focus – Openness – Respect – Courage. These values relate to the ethics of Scrum, thereby -from a social point of view- turning Scrum into a value system.
Although not invented as a part of Scrum, or exclusive to Scrum, these values give direction to our work, our behavior and our actions. In a Scrum context the decisions we take, the steps we take, the way we play Scrum, the practices we add to Scrum, the activities we surround Scrum with should re-enforce these values, not diminish or undermine them.
I have found it very useful to bring these more out in the open, as a way to assess the desirability our actions and activities. It’s even a great help in thinking about applying the Scrum framework itself. It is possible to do Scrum as if it was a methodology; organize the meetings, direct all players on every possible detail for every possible action within the framework. But is the framework then being used for what it’s designed for? Won’t it leave the individual, the team and the organization with limited improvements?
A good illustration is how I’ve observed some teams doing their Daily Scrum. Everybody answers the 3 questions (Done? Planned? Impediments?), in a slightly spontaneous way or -worst case- when asked for by a Scrum Master-pretend. But does the team use the meeting to share information, to collaborate in re-planning their work for that day, making sure they don’t get out of line with one another for more than 24 hours, to get the most out of the Sprint, in moving forward to the Sprint goal? Or do they talk to the board instead of to each other? Do they only use the meeting to make sure that the board holds all their micro-tasks so their work is logged?
Here’s some detailed view on the values, and how they can guide our actions and behavior in a Scrum context:
Commitment
There is a widely spread misinterpretation of the word commitment in a Scrum context. This originates mainly from the past expectation of Scrum for teams to ‘commit’ to the Sprint and the selected Product Backlog items. Upon the old, industrial thinking (that ruled software development for too many years) this was wrongly turned into the expectation that all scope would be delivered, no matter. ‘Commitment’ was wrongly turned into a hard-coded contract although it was always intended as an indication that the team would do the maximum possible effort in the Sprint and be completely transparent about progress. And in the complex, creative and highly unpredictable world of software development a commitment on scope is impossible anyhow.
And the definition of the word, according to Oxford Dictionaries, describes exactly how it was originally intended in Scrum:
So, commitment is about dedication and applies to the actions, the effort, not the final result.
Yet, in the Scrum Guide we replaced commitment as a result of the Sprint Planning with forecast. Because of the relationship with scope it helps getting explicitly rid of the wrong interpretation. And fortunately ‘forecast’ greatly aligns with the empirical nature of Scrum too.
Still, commitment is and remains a core value of Scrum.
We commit to the team. Commit to quality. Commit to collaborate. Commit to learn. Commit to do the best we can, every day again. Commit to the Sprint Goal. Commit to be professional. Commit to self-organize. Commit to excellence. Commit to the agile principles. Commit to create working software. Commit to look for improvements. Commit to the Definition of Done. Commit to the Scrum framework. Commit to focus on Value. Commit to finish work. Commit to inspect & adapt. Commit to transparency. Commit to challenge the status-quo.
Focus
An iterative-incremental approach like Scrum and the time-boxing of Scrum allow us to focus. We focus on what’s most important now without being bothered by considerations of what at some point in time might stand a chance to become important. We focus on what we know now and YAGNI (You Ain’t Gonna Need It) helps retaining that focus. We focus on what’s most nearby in time as the future is highly uncertain and we want to learn from the present to gain experience for future work. We focus on the work to get things done. We focus on the simplest thing that might possibly work.
Openness
The empiricism of Scrum requires transparency, openness. We want to inspect reality in order to make sensible adaptations. We are open about our work, our progress, our learning and our problems. But we are also open for people, and working with people; acknowledging people to be people, and not resources, robots or replaceable pieces of machinery as software development -after all- is still the work of humans. We are open to collaborate across disciplines and skills. We are open to collaborate with stakeholders and the wider environment. Open in sharing feedback and learn from one another. Open for change as the organization and the world it operates in change unpredictably, unexpectedly and constantly.
Respect
We show respect for people, their experience and their personal background. We respect diversity (it makes us stronger). We respect different opinions (we might learn from it). We show respect for our sponsors by not building features that nobody will use. We show respect by not wasting money on things that are not valuable or might never being implemented or used. We show respect for users by fixing their problems. We respect the Scrum framework. We respect our wider environment by not behaving as an isolated island in the world. We respect each other’s skills, expertise and insights. We respect the accountabilities of the Scrum roles.
Courage
We show courage in not building stuff that nobody wants. Courage in admitting requirements will never be perfect and that no plan can capture reality and complexity. Courage to consider change as a source of inspiration and innovation. Courage to not deliver undone software. Courage in sharing all possible information (transparency) that might help the team and the organization. Courage in admitting that nobody is perfect. Courage to change direction. Courage to share risks and benefits. Courage to promote Scrum and empiricism to deal with complexity. Courage to let go of the feint certainties of the past. We show courage to support the Scrum Values.
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Esse texto trás um síntese perfeita em relação ao valores do SCRUM. Parabéns!
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Great article and very useful to enhance your agile knowledge.
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[…] Scrum Değerleri, Scrum Takımları incelenerek ortaya çıkmış değerlerdir. Scrum Takımları incelenmiş ve en başarılı Scrum Takımları’nın bu ortak değerlere sahip olduğu görülmüştür. Elbet farklı değerlere sahip takımlarda olabilir, bu yanlış değildir. Fakat Scrum’daki pratiklerin en iyi şekilde işletilebilmesi için takımların Scrum Değerlerine sahip olması çok iyi olacaktır. […]
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Great article, gives a lot of insight about scrum values.
Great article and I can relate each and every thing about commitment, focus, openness, respect & courage. In reality, none of this is being seen. If these values are adopted we can save 50% of the companies going out of business.
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[…] Some are focused on telling teams to do Scrum exactly as the Scrum Guide describes “because Scrum says so.” But by doing that, the people affected often quickly resent Scrum because they’re just being told to do it and don’t understand why they have to do what Scrum says. There is also no focus on the culture needed for Scrum to thrive. […]
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Hi,
Why these specific values are added as Scrum Values and not any other values? I’m trying to understand the rationale behind adding these values.
Your perspective on this is highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Thota
Hi Thota
In his first book, “Agile software development with Scrum”, Ken Schwaber described these 5 values. They represented the most important behaviours that he and Jeff Sutherland had seen emerging in some of the earliest Scrum implementations (by the end of the ’90s).
Gunther
Got it. Thank you, Gunther.
[…] Some are focused on telling teams to do Scrum exactly as the Scrum Guide describes “because Scrum says so.” But by doing that, the people affected often quickly resent Scrum because they’re just being told to do it and don’t understand why they have to do what Scrum says. There is also no focus on the culture needed for Scrum to thrive. […]
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Dear Gunther
I will be grateful if you can give me permission to reprint a translate to Japanese it to my blog.
Hi
Sounds great. Please get in touch via mail (gunther.verheyen@mac.com).
Gunther
[…] Some are focused on telling teams to do Scrum exactly as the Scrum Guide describes “because Scrum says so.” But by doing that, the people affected often quickly resent Scrum because they’re just being told to do it and don’t understand why they have to do what Scrum says. There is also no focus on the culture needed for Scrum to thrive. […]
[…] members of a Scrum team are committed to the team’s objectives and, as Gunther Verheyen says, with quality, with learning, with being better professionals, with transparency, with […]
[…] miembros de un equipo Scrum se comprometen con los objetivos del equipo y, como dice Gunther Verheyen, con la calidad, con aprender, con ser mejores profesionales, con la transparencia, con […]
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[…] An update to the Scrum Guide will be released on 7 November 2017. In a webinar, the principal co-creators of Scrum, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, will introduce the changes relative to the previous update. The previous update was released on 6 July 2016 and encompassed the addition of the Scrum Values. […]
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If somebody says that they have “values” – it is an authoritarian bullshit.
[…] https://blog.scrum.org/updates-scrum-guide-5-scrum-values-take-center-stage [2] Gunther Verheyen: https://guntherverheyen.com/2013/05/03/theres-value-in-the-scrum-values [3] Scrum Guide: […]
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[…] Por otro lado, no es nueva en cuanto que ya había aparecido en alguna de las publicaciones con más solera de Ken Y Jeff, incluso Gunther Verheyen en 2013 dedicó un post a los mismos “There’s value in the Scrum Values“. […]
Reblogged this on Gilbert C Delgado.
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[…] in detail a definition of each. Gunther Verheyen did a fantastic job describing these values in his blog . Instead I want to focus on why these values that may appear obvious, are actually really […]
[…] without these values guiding decision-making and interactions is often referred to as “mechanical Scrum.” Just going through the […]
Hi Gunther,
Perfectly explained!
I have been observing different organizations for years and for most of them Scrum became a buzzword with forgetting that there is something important behind that word.
That was one of the reasons I decided to design an event to increase awareness of Scrum Values. This is non-profit simulation game called Scrum City Game, which is taking place in Poland and attracts hundreds people each year. It’s of course possible to learn Scrum fundamentals, but the emphasis is put on promoting behaviors that come along with Commitment, Focus, Openness, Courage, Respect. That’s the point we should start from…
Hi Gunther,
Perfectly explained!
I have been observing different organizations for years and for most of them Scrum became a buzzword with forgetting that there is something important behind that word.
That was one of the reasons I decided to design an event to increase awareness of Scrum Values. This is non profit simulation game called Scrum City Game, which is taking place in Poland and attracts hundreds of people each year. People could of course learn Scrum fundamentals, but the emphasis is put on promoting behaviors that come along with Commitment, Focus, Openness, Courage, Respect.
[…] There’s value in the Scrum Values […]
[…] with Agile, the Scrum Values and Scrum’s fundamental roles and rules as described in the Scrum Guide don’t change […]
[…] ‘process’ and even outcomes. Accountability drives behavior. Behavior becomes grounded in the Scrum values, and Scrum is understood and applied through the values and principles expressed in the Manifesto […]
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Great, Gunther
This is the best explanation of Scrum Values I have met before. Short, precise and really inspiring.
And I still remember what you said during PSMI – when adding some tactics on top of the Scrum Framework we have to think if it narrows the Values or makes them stronger.
Mechanical Scrum would be a Scrum without Values – just repetitive process of scrum events and rules.