One of the best things that happened to the Scrum Guide in the last two years was the introduction of the Scrum Values.  These two very simple paragraphs shine a huge light on things that are crucial to the success of Scrum.  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about each one, how they impact what we do each day, and want to look at each one in turn.

• Commitment
• Courage
• Focus
• Openness
• Respect

Quoting from the November 2017 Scrum Guide:

When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and build trust for everyone. The Scrum Team members learn and explore those values as they work with the Scrum roles, events, and artifacts.

Successful use of Scrum depends on people becoming more proficient in living these five values. People personally commit to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team members have courage to do the right thing and work on tough problems. Everyone focuses on the work of the Sprint and the goals of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders agree to be open about all the work and the challenges with performing the work. Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people.

Two paragraphs.  Lots of information to digest.

Rather than writing one large post on why these are absolutely critical, I will take them one at a time – one per day, starting next Monday – and dive into what how each one of these Scrum Values is so important.  These aren’t just words that we can consider and forget, they are imperative in how we create highly collaborative, highly productive teams.  

It’s worth pointing out right here that I actually wrote this first post after I drafted all of the ones that will follow.  One of the best parts of examining each of the Scrum Values, to me, was examining how each one relates very strongly to the others.  Considering each individually, it becomes clear how all five are tightly connected, and provide crucial pillars upon which Scrum is built.

This should be fun!