Introduction
The Scrum Values were first described by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle in their book “Agile Software Development with Scrum” (Prentice Hall, 2002 – chapter 9, p. 147). They described the Scrum Values as ‘qualities’ that they found that people using Scrum displayed: Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage.
Towards the end of 2012, a student in one of my Professional Scrum classes (a candidate-trainer actually) asked me about the relevance of the Scrum Values. I realized that they had indeed over time faded, although I personally still considered them important. I checked in with Ken Schwaber and he agreed: still the bedrock despite having completely disappeared from the radar.
It was clear that there was value in re-surfacing the Scrum Values. So, that is what I did in May 2013 with a blog note called “There’s value in the Scrum Values“. I then also added that description to my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” (Van Haren Publishing) with the first edition published in November 2013. In 2016 the Scrum Values were added to the Scrum Guide. In 2018-2019 members from the global Scrum communities translated my description of the Scrum Values in 20+ languages.
Since 2012 I have only slightly evolved the words that describe the Scrum Values, mainly as part of creating small, incremental updates of my pocket guide to Scrum (2019, 2021 and 2024). I am honoured and humbled for the continued appreciation of my description.
I gladly share my description of the Scrum Values here, as well as all translations. Each international version is available as a free download (PDF).
Enjoy.
Gunther Verheyen
independent Scrum Caretaker
The Value in the Scrum Values
With Scrum, a frame is created within which people and organizations develop a working process that is specific and appropriate to their time and context. Within the boundaries of Scrum, people form organized groups around a common problem or challenge without external work plans or instructions being imposed on them. Next to this principle of self-organization, the rules and elements of Scrum all serve empiricism, also known as ‘empirical process control’. Self-organization and empiricism form Scrum’s DNA and combined they form the most suitable approach for addressing complex challenges in complex circumstances.
There is, however, more to Scrum than the rules and these management principles. Ultimately, Scrum is even more about behavior than it is about process. Values drive behavior. The framework of Scrum is based upon five core values: Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage . Although these values were not invented as a part of Scrum and are not exclusive to Scrum, they do give direction to the work, behavior and actions in Scrum. The Scrum Values drive the behavior of the inhabitants of the house of Scrum.
In a context of Scrum, our decisions, the steps we take, the way we play the game, the practices we include and the activities we undertake within Scrum should all re-enforce these values, not diminish or undermine them, whether it concerns the ‘process’ aspect (empiricism) or the ‘people’ aspect (self-organization) of Scrum.
Scrum is a framework of rules, principles and…values.
The Scrum Values
Commitment
The general definition of ‘commitment’ is “the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.”. It can be illustrated by a team’s trainer stating, “I could not fault my players for their commitment” (although they might have just lost a game).
This describes exactly how commitment is intended in Scrum. Commitment is about engagement and dedication and applies to the actions and the intensity of the effort. It is not about the final result, as this in itself is often uncertain and unpredictable for complex challenges in complex circumstances.
Yet, there was a widely spread misinterpretation of the word commitment in a context of Scrum. This originates mainly from the past expectation of Scrum that teams should ‘commit’ to a Sprint. Through the lens of the traditional, industrial paradigm this was wrongly translated into an expectation that all scope selected at Sprint Planning would be completed by the end of the Sprint, no matter what happened. ‘Commitment’ was wrongly converted into a hard-coded contract.
In the complex, creative and highly unpredictable worlds that Scrum helps us to navigate, a promise to deliver exact, in the sense of precisely predicted, output or scope against time and budget, is simply not possible, not even for a Sprint (because if that was the case we wouldn’t need a Daily Scrum). Too many of the variables that influence the work are unknown or behave in unpredictable ways, even within a Sprint.
To better reflect the original intent and connect more effectively to empiricism, ‘commitment’ in the context of scope for a Sprint was replaced with ‘forecast’.
However, commitment is and remains a core value of Scrum:
The players are committed to the team, to collaborative action and thus to a collaboractive stance. They commit to quality. Commit to learn. Commit to do the best they can, every day, with the commitment to work at a sustainable pace. They are committed to the goals they set. They commit to act as professionals. Commit to self-organize. Commit to excellence. Commit to the Agile value statements and principles. Commit to create working versions of product that comply with the definition of Done. Commit to look for improvements. Commit to the Scrum framework. Commit to deliver value. Commit to finish work. Commit to inspect and adapt. Commit to transparency. Commit to productive dissent and challenging the status quo, including a situation of ‘artificial harmony’.
Focus
The balanced but distinct accountabilities of Scrum enable all players to focus on their expertise, interests and talents while the focus on overarching ambitions and shared goals invites them to combine, extend and improve their expertise, skills and talents.
The time-boxing of Scrum encourages the players to focus on what’s most important now without being bothered by considerations of what might stand a chance of becoming important at some unknown point in the future. They focus on what they know now. YAGNI (‘You Ain’t Gonna Need It’) helps in retaining that focus. The players focus on what is most imminent as the future is highly uncertain and they prefer learning from the present in order to gain experience for future work. They focus on the work needed to get things done. They focus on the simplest thing that might possibly work.
The Sprint Goal gives focus to a period of four weeks, or less. Within that period, the Daily Scrum helps people collaboratively focus on the immediate daily work needed to make the best possible progress towards the Sprint Goal. A Product Goal provides direction and focus across multiple Sprints and helps in finding and keeping direction.
Openness
The empiricism and self-organization of Scrum require transparency, openness and honesty.
The player-inspectors want to check on the real situation in order to make sensible adaptations. The players are open about their work, progress, learnings and problems. But they are also open for the people aspect of work and what working with people involves, acknowledging people to be…people, and not ‘resources’, robots, cogs or replaceable pieces of machinery.
The players are open to collaborate across disciplines, skills, functions and job descriptions without external procedures or rules of governance dictating that. They are open to collaborate with stakeholders, users, key users and the wider environment. Open in sharing feedback and learning from one another.
They are open for change as the organization and the world in which they operate change; unpredictably, unexpectedly and constantly.
Respect
The broader Scrum ecosystem thrives on respect for people, their professional experience and their personal background. The players respect and strive for diversity. They respect different opinions. They respect each other’s skills, expertise and insights. Differences in opinions are respectfully dealt with in a state of productive dissent.
The players respect the wider environment by not behaving as an isolated entity. They respect the fact that customers change their mind. They show respect for the sponsors of their initiatives by not building or keeping functions that are never used and that increase the total cost of the product. They show respect by not wasting money on things that are not valuable, not appreciated or might never be implemented or used anyhow. They show respect for users by fixing their problems. They show respect for users by not releasing undone or sloppy work.
All players respect the Scrum framework. All involved respect the accountabilities of Scrum, whether part of the team or not.
Courage
The players show courage by not building stuff that nobody wants. Courage in admitting that requirements will never be perfect and that no plan can capture reality and complexity.
They show the courage to welcome change and different opinions as a source of inspiration and innovation. Courage to not deliver undone versions of product. Courage in sharing all possible information that might help the team and the organization. Courage in entering a state of productive dissent. Courage in admitting that nobody is perfect. Courage to change direction. Courage to share risks and benefits. Courage to let go of the illusory certainties of the past.
The players show courage in promoting Scrum and enacting its underlying management principles of self-organization and empiricism to navigate complexity. The courage to act on deliberate emergence. The courage to take a decision, act and make progress, not grind to a halt. And even more courage to change that decision.
They show courage in supporting and enacting the Scrum Values.
