Scrum Values Retrospective

Either you are a Scrum Team Member or a coach the Values Retrospective can be very powerful. As you probably know at the end of each Sprint we run Retrospectives to inspect ourselves as a self-organized and cross functional scrum team. After few sprints if you don’t have the proper mindset in place you will face a zombie scrum team doing mechanical or flaccid scrum. We definitively don’t want that. I won’t go into the many ways of trying to get back on track with a team like that, but a starting point can be to inspect how we are doing with the Scrum Values.

Reboot the values

Start the meeting by covering the 3 pillars and the 5 values. If you are facilitating, don’t be the only one to speak. Timebox the discussion for each value. Ask the audience what means each value for them. Ask them to not try to inspect the current state of adoption but really what this value is supposed to mean for a Scrum Team.

Evaluate Values Adoption

Ask everyone to evaluate each value from 1 to 5 for example. You can do that on paper, with fist of five, online with a shared tabular sheet… Your choice.

Rank Values

Then ask the audience to rank the values. Which one is the one we totally adopted which one we have the most difficulties to apply to ourselves. You can rank them from 1 to 5 or use any other way.

Discuss the Results & Take Action

Sum the results for each value and look at the one you need to work on the most. This has to be a discussion but don’t forget to come out of it with at least one concrete action to take immediately.

Scrum On !

Convincing People Series – Why does Scrum works?

Starting your agile journey with a Why question is a good start. Why does it works and what do you need to make it works ?

Empiricism

Scrum is an implementation of empirical process control and this simple fact tells a lot on how it can be successful. When you are building a product in a predictive way you are trying to prevent all scenarios that may cause you problems in building and delivering it on time. And most of the time it fails because of the complexity and the challenges you face. And also because we never take time to look at our issues and find ways of fixing them in a longer term. No lessons learned just firefighting.

If you do it the right way you need to make the three pillars (Transparency, Inspection, Adaptation) the foundations of every decision you are making. This way will allow you to constantly analyse your current situation and adapt in consequence. Every problem you are facing is a learning experiment that you can transform into small adaptations in your process. As simple as it is.

But what make scrum teams successful?

If you choose to go the Scrum way and want your team to be successful you will have to do more than just implementing the three pillars. The five values are the roots for your team to grow and perform. Those values are too often forgotten and this is why they reappeared in the Scrum guide in 2016. Respect everyone, be committed as a team in your every day work, have the courage in taking decisions and try new things, be open and keep your focus on the goal is what it should be all about.

 

All in all Scrum is not a magical framework but helps you through a simple set of roles, events and artifacts to start building software in less than 30 days. Every iteration is an opportunity to measure and learn in order to deliver the best possible product that fits your business. But don’t forget that having experienced people in Scrum implementation and the right training will help you to start in good conditions. Now Scrum On !