The five Scrum values, and what they look like on a Tuesday

Values that appear on a wall and in no decision are decoration. The Scrum Guide takes a stronger position: successful use of Scrum depends on people becoming more proficient in living five values. They are not a list of virtues. They are the conditions under which the rest of the framework works.

What the Guide says

The five values are commitment, focus, openness, respect and courage. The Guide explains each in one sentence.

• The Scrum Team commits to achieving its goals and to supporting each other.
• Its primary focus is the work of the Sprint, to make the best possible progress toward those goals.
• The team and its stakeholders are open about the work and the challenges.
• Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people, and are respected as such by the people with whom they work.
• Team members have the courage to do the right thing and to work on tough problems.

Then it states what they are for. These values give direction to the team with regard to its work, actions and behaviour. The decisions made, the steps taken and the way Scrum is used should reinforce them and not diminish or undermine them. When they are embodied by the team and the people it works with, the empirical pillars of transparency, inspection and adaptation come to life, building trust.

The link to empirical process control is the key. The pillars describe what must happen. The values describe the behaviour that lets it happen. A team can have a visible board, a Daily Scrum and a Retrospective, and still not inspect or adapt anything, if people do not feel able to say what the board shows.

Each value in practice

Commitment

The wording matters: the team commits to achieving its goals, not to completing a list. The Sprint Goal is the commitment attached to the Sprint Backlog, and the Guide says that although it is a commitment by the Developers, it gives flexibility in the exact work needed. Commitment also covers supporting each other. A Developer who finishes their own task and then asks who needs help is practising it. A team that says "my part is done" while the goal is at risk is not.

Focus

The team's primary focus is the work of the Sprint. This is why the Sprint has a fixed length and a goal, why the Guide says changes should not endanger the Sprint Goal, and why a Scrum Team works at a sustainable pace to improve focus and consistency. Focus gets eroded by unplanned requests, by too many items started at once, and by people being divided across several products. The remedy is usually structural: a visible limit on work in progress, a Product Owner who handles requests, and a Scrum Master who deals with interruptions.

Openness

The team and stakeholders are open about the work and the challenges. In practice that means a real burndown, a Sprint Review that shows what is not finished, and a Retrospective where someone says the thing that is awkward. It is the value that makes transparency possible. Pressure to look good works directly against it.

Respect

Members respect each other as capable, independent people. This sounds mild and is hard to do. It means not interrupting, not assuming that a colleague's estimate is lazy, and not overruling the Developers on how work is done. It also applies to how stakeholders treat the team: the Guide says that for the Product Owner to succeed, the whole organisation must respect their decisions.

Courage

To do the right thing and to work on tough problems. Courage is saying that the date is at risk, declining a request that does not serve the Sprint Goal, admitting that an estimate was wrong, or telling a senior stakeholder that a rejected story is not Done. It is also the value that costs the person using it the most.

How the events call on them

The Guide says the Scrum Team members learn and explore the values as they work with the events and artifacts. They are not taught in a workshop and then assumed.

How teams undermine them without noticing

• A "green" status that is not true. This replaces openness with comfort.
• A new request accepted because the requester is senior. This takes focus away from the goal.
• Estimates adjusted downward after pushback. That wipes out courage and respect together.
• A Retrospective where the loudest voice sets the topic. The quieter members stop contributing, and the team loses what they knew.
• Commitment to a list. When "committed" means "promised to deliver every item", people hide problems to avoid breaking the promise.

A useful test of any proposed practice is whether it makes one of the five easier or harder. The Guide frames it that way: steps taken should reinforce the values. A practice that makes people less open, however efficient, is working against the framework.

Values and the Definition of Done

The values are easiest to see at the boundary where quality meets a deadline. The Guide says the Developers are required to conform to the Definition of Done and that quality does not decrease during the Sprint. Now picture the last day with one story unfinished. Commitment says the team supports whoever is stuck. Focus says drop the side request. Openness says tell the Product Owner today, not at the review. Respect says hear the Developer who thinks the story cannot be done properly in the time. Courage says accept that it goes back to the Product Backlog, and not weaken the Definition of Done to make it fit.

No single act in that list is dramatic. A team that gets used to doing all five at small stakes is the team that does them when the stakes are high.

The Scrum Master's part

The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum, and the values are part of that. They rarely mention the word. They notice when a Developer is interrupted and say something, when a stakeholder is allowed to shout down the team, or when a problem is carried over from one retrospective to the next. They also model the values, because a Scrum Master who hides bad news teaches the team to do the same.

The Agile Manifesto's principle on motivated individuals, to give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done, is respect expressed as a management practice.

How to practise it

Values are tested when something is at stake. In the simulator, you face a Sponsor who wants more than the team can build, a blocker that is easy to ignore and a change request that tempts you to bend the Sprint, and each choice is a small test of focus, openness or courage.