The fundamental unit of Scrum is a small group of people: The Scrum Team. The real challenge, though, is to make a real team out of individuals, who happen not to meet one another in reality even once. This is where Scrum values kick in. These values are Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage. These values are universal and aren’t limited to software development environments.

When these values are embodied by the Scrum Team and the people they work with, the empirical Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life building trust.

Scrum Guide 2020

Respect –> Scrum values birth

That’s where everything starts. We sometimes diminish the importance of a good atmosphere on the team. Respect towards each other is the essential condition for other Scrum values to flourish. Respect gives rise to a safe environment in which you air your views, ideas, proposals openly. Also, it enables team members to speak freely about what they don’t like. Constructive criticism is barely possible without mutual respect. Gossiping, judging, calling someone names, mocking are everything that make our workplace toxic. Mind you, respect is the foundation of trust.

Courage –> the truth

Don’t be afraid

If we are respected, we’re not afraid of sharing our ideas with other team members. What’s more, they have the courage to tell the management the truth about what’s really going on. They go so far as to constructively criticise the management wrong policies. They do it for the sake of the team. Everything they do is revealed to be transparent to the rest. They also pick up courage to say “no” in certain situations.

We’re what we’re

Courage has another face too. With people being trusted and respected, the learning setting is being formed. People aren’t afraid to try new solutions, ideas, or proposals. Moreover, they have the nerve to ask other team members for help, as they know there’s nothing wrong about making mistakes.

Openness –> novelty

Openness is closely related to courage and respect. They go hand in hand together, as it’s hard to be open when you feel insecure and ostracized. Openness displays in four ways:

  • anyone is free to attend Scrum meetings, as there is nothing to hide,
  • everyone is allowed to add anything on the Product Backlog, as any idea might be powerful and is going to be taken into account,
  • everyone is open to new solutions, ideas, suggestions, as changes are welcome,
  • everyone is open to new challenges,
  • everyone is open to changes.

Focus –> Goal

There are two aspects worth mentioning here. The first one concerns the goal establishing. Owing to the goal being constituted, focus is created on it. The team defines work that goes along with the goal, and they focus on the portion of work that supports it. In other words, we concentrate on the work that is valuable in a given moment. The second aspect is, all team members are going in the same direction, as they’re united by the before-mentioned goal.

Commitment –> the linchpin of Scrum values

Jeff Sutherland says commitment is Scrum linchpin. Commitment is the desire to work hard and to give your time and energy to activities. When the team is forced to do something, it can’t take ownership of the work. Commitment emerges as the team is give the conditions to be self-organized and self-managing.

It doesn’t work without Scrum values

One of Agile manifesto principles reads that we should value people and interactions more than processes and tools. Why? Because how good or bad our tools and processes are depends on what our relationships and interactions look like. In order for Scrum to work, we need a certain set of behaviours that reinforce the Scrum values. Our decisions, strategies, communication patterns, behaviours should reflect them. Only by practising can they be learnt and implemented within the organization.