Living the Scrum Values
How should we live the scrum values? Here's one way: by examining how we are not living them. At the end of each day put a few minutes aside for a personal introspective, and ask yourself questions similar in nature to the following...
Focus: When today did I become distracted? When was I trying to multi-task, or rapidly task-switch? When did I allow myself to get sucked in to social media while trying to get work done?
Respect: When was I disrespectful? When did I ignore someone, talk over them, fail to listen properly, dismiss an idea, assume to know better? Did I talk negatively about someone? Did I give unsolicited feedback? Did I take someone for granted? Did I forget to say please or thank you?
Openness: Did I keep secrets today? Was it necessary? Did I share my work, my difficulties and my successes with my colleagues/friends/family members? When someone asked me how I felt and I said "fine" was that true?
Commitment: Did I make any commitments? Did I honour them? Did I look for excuses/justifications or seek someone else to blame when I was unable to deliver on a promise? Did I over-commit, making promises I knew deep down I wouldn't be able to keep? Was I vague, avoiding commitments altogether?
Courage: When was I cowardly in my interactions? Did I use avoidance tactics rather than confront? Did I have a "not my problem" attitude or hide my head in the sand? Did I say yes, to appease my colleague/manager/spouse when really I wanted to say no?
We can also ask questions like this of ourselves, of each other and of our team as a whole at our sprint retrospectives, balancing the conversation by offering positive observations to one another. Scrum values must be more than words in the scrum guide. If we want to become effective in our work, to continue to improve both our products and our processes we need to agree a set of common values and strive to live up to them. This takes effort, time and mindful attention. It requires us to step out of our doing self and into our observing self, a shift which requires cultivation to become a habit.
#scrumvalues #scrummaster #scrumteam #productowner #retrospective #introspective
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?Image by Johaina Bani Oraba, from the Omani Observer, https://www.omanobserver.om/article/19624/
Account Manager || SAFe Agilist || CSM || Scrum Master || Agile Coach || Technical Program Manager
3 年I think the Scrum values are just not foCusEd till work culture but to personal life also. Nice article.
Guiding Teams to Achieve Meaningful Results and Long-Term Success through Agile Leadership
3 年Some good honest ways to assess oneself, however, I would like to add a word that is often used in a religious context, but which I feel is so relevant to life, especially a life in lock-down/post-lockdown where the world finds itself now. The word is "Grace". Per Merriam-Webster, one of the definitions of grace is: "unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification". Two additional words are found in that sentence - - "regeneration" which renewal, revival, or restoration - "sanctification" which can mean a number of things dictated by context. For the purposes of this post, the meaning that I intend is "to impart or impute respect to... " yourself or others Basically what it boils down to is providing space to mess up, and assisting in recovery, learning, and application. We can use this approach personally, which we often fail to do with not-so-good consequences, and we can use it for our work, leisure, and family spaces. Be gentle on yourself, we're not infallible and have a blessed day.
Find the Right Setup to Achieve Better Results! ? Change Companion for Organizations, Teams and Leaders ??
3 年I like your prompts for self reflection with each value. Reading your article as a team, followed up by some dialogue, makes a great retrospective activity I guess. ??
Coach, Graphic Recorder and Visual Facilitator
3 年And just like that, I again rediscover the love I have for the Scrum values! Artfully expressed Tobias!
Passionate about building community
3 年Wow! I am always looking for Retrospectives that challenge my teams to dig deeper. This is very deep!