The 5 Scrum Values (Part 1 of 2)

We have already mentioned that the scrum framework is not only a software development. Scrum framework also has a robust set of underlying principles that are super relevant for business improvement. In fact, most of the professional business domains can apply and utilise these principles.

Scrum Value #1. Courage

There are times when doing the correct thing to serve the best values and benefits for our clients are not the easiest. In such moments, scrum master, scrum product owner, and the scrum team members should remember their duty and obligation.

That's to build the best possible products and services in their particular business and information technology domain. To be better than mediocre, a scrum team should sooner or later face difficult decisions that won't make everyone happy in their particular ecosystem of stakeholders.

To deal with this, all members of the scrum team should remember to be courageous, and they should master to decide and act courageously.

Scrum Value #2. Focus

With the scrum framework, when you hear the value focus, you should be thinking about two things:

• Identification of correct work: What tasks are necessary to deliver the goals of my sprint? What are essential to developing the best software products and services for my clients so that they will be pleased with my work?

• Prioritisation: What tasks should I be working on next?

Each moment in time, there is one critical question that the entire scrum team, including scrum master and product owner, must be answering.

This question is: "What are the most important things we should be doing at the moment to fulfill reasons of why the “customers” (including your boss) hired us in the first place?"

Scrum framework has several built-in events (rituals) to ensure the reasonable prioritisation of Stories and Tasks. According to the scrum process, the prioritisation of Stories and their associated Tasks should have a continuous priority - this helps make sure that the team works on the right things in the correct order.

Some of the built-in scrum ceremonies (scrum events) to prioritise our work and adjust our focus are:

• Scrum Grooming (Backlog Refinement) Meeting:
  Grooming Meeting solely focuses on prioritisation for Product Backlog to prepare it before the upcoming Sprint Planning Meeting.

• Sprint Planning Meeting:
  These meetings help us see the dependencies and correct order of work to deliver our user stories.

• Daily Scrum Meeting:
  Daily Scrum (Daily Stand-Up) Meeting supports us to set the tone of an upcoming workday. We must direct our focus on where it's most required.

• Sprint Review Meeting:
  Sprint review meeting indirectly shows us where the emphasis of the scrum team must be channeling to have more successful reviews in the future.

• Sprint Retrospective Meeting:
  These meetings support the scrum team to prioritize what aspects of their engineering process must be first improved.

 
Having read all these, it must be evident for you now how essential prioritisation and focus for the scrum framework are.

We will look at the remaining three Scrum Values in our next post.