Gunther Verheyen

Scrum is a framework—a skeleton process—that we complete into a way of working tuned to our time and context. A Scrum adoption requires more than the skeleton of rules, roles, and artifacts. Scrum offers room and opportunities for people to collaborate, explore, and experiment. Scrum is more about behavior than it is about process.

Values drive behavior. Scrum defines five core values: Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage. These values give direction to our work, behavior, and actions in Scrum. We are required to understand these values against the complexity and unpredictability that Scrum enables us to address.

Commitment

Commitment is typically—and wrongly—understood as a hard-coded contract. Exact results, however, are generally impossible to predict in complex challenges in complex circumstances. This is why commitment as an outcome of Sprint Planning was replaced with forecast. Commitment in Scrum is—in line with its true meaning—about dedication and applies to the actions and the intensity of our efforts. It can be illustrated by a team’s trainer stating, “I could not fault my players for their commitment” (although they might have lost a game).

Focus

Focus is increased through the balanced but distinct accountabilities of the Scrum roles. All work in Scrum is time-boxed to encourage players to focus on what’s most important now over considerations of what might potentially become important somewhere in the future. The players focus on what is imminent, as the future is uncertain. They learn from the present in order to gain experience for future work. The Sprint Goal and the Daily Scrums provide focus on the work needed to get things done in four weeks or less and on the simplest thing that works.

Openness

Openness relates to more than the transparency needed for and provided by the empirical process of Scrum. It also implies that all players are open about their work, progress, lessons, and problems and need an environment where such openness is encouraged. All are open for working with people, acknowledging that people are not resources (robots, cogs, or replaceable pieces of machinery). The players are open to collaborate across disciplines, skills, and job descriptions and with stakeholders and the wider environment.

Respect

Respect is an essential trait in a Scrum ecosystem that thrives on people collaborating and sharing their experience, regardless of their varying personal backgrounds. The players respect one another’s skills, expertise, and insights. They respect diversity and different opinions. They respect the fact that customers change their minds. They show respect by not wasting money on functionality that is not valuable, not appreciated, or that might never be implemented or used anyhow. All players respect the Scrum framework. They respect the accountabilities of Scrum.

Courage

Courage is needed to admit that requirements can never be perfect and that no plan can capture reality and complexity. Courage is needed to change direction, to consider change as a source of inspiration and innovation. It is the courage to let go of the illusory certainties of the past. Courage is needed to put quality first and not deliver undone versions of product in Scrum. Courage is admitting that nobody is perfect. The players show courage in promoting Scrum and use empiricism to deal with complexity and unpredictability. They show courage to support the Scrum Values.