Great Scrum Masters Demonstrate 5 Key Values

A team’s success with Scrum depends on five values: commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect. The scrum master plays a key role in modeling those values.

Great Scrum Masters Value Commitment.

Great scrum masters reinforce a team’s commitment when they facilitate sprint planning, protect teams from mid-sprint changes, and deflect excessive pressure from product owners.

Great Scrum Masters Value Courage.

Great scrum masters help foster team courage by creating safety for team members to have difficult conversations—with one another, with the product owner, and with stakeholders. ScrumMasters are fearless about removing impediments that slow the team down. Scrum masters also stand up to stakeholders to prevent changes or side projects during the sprint while also helping teams adapt when priorities shift between sprints.

Great ScrumMasters Value Focus.

Great scrum masters encourage team focus by holding the team to their own definition of done, by encouraging full team participation at each daily scrum, and by ensuring that team members only present work that is complete at the sprint review.

Great Scrum Masters Value Openness.

Great scrum masters facilitate openness in daily scrums so the team is always aware of exactly how the sprint is going. ScrumMasters encourage openness in sprint reviews by ensuring that stakeholder feedback is constructive and that team members are able to hear it. ScrumMasters remind teams that learning about product shortcomings early is much less expensive and much more helpful than hearing about them late in the project, or worse after the product is in the customer’s hands. In the same way, scrum masters foster an open environment in sprint retrospectives so that teams can grow and develop from sprint to sprint.

Great Scrum Masters Value Respect.

Great scrum masters develop respect in their teams. They help teams listen to each other during daily scrums. They encourage teams to share their struggles and their successes. Scrum masters also point out times of strong collaboration and facilitate conversations around new ideas.

Want to know more about being a great Scrum Master? Visit our Scrum Master collection.