👉 The more people become proficient in living the Scrum values, the more successful the use of Scrum will be.
When the Scrum values are embodied by the Scrum Team and the people they work with, the empirical Scrum pillars come to life, building trust.
Reminder: the Scrum Values are Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage.
Each of the team members should live these values. So how can the Product Owner show this?
- Commitment to truly understand the users of the product. What are their real challenges, their frustrations? What keeps them awake at night? What are their hopes, their dreams, their desires?
- Have the Courage to say No. Not every request is to be added to the product or service. It is OK to say no to a user if as a Product Owner you are convinced this request is not providing enough value or does not match the vision of the product.
- Focus on the Product Goal. Don’t distract yourself nor the team. Set a goal and go for it. Keep evaluating the goal that it still makes sense, and keep the focus on it until it is proven reached or no longer valuable.
- Be Open to your users; to your market. Listen carefully to understand. Also be open to share insights you got from other users. Be open to reevaluate the order in the Product Backlog, and even adapt the product vision. Listen and share. Listen and adapt.
- Respect your users and your team. They sometimes will tell you things you didn't want to hear. Users not yet satisfied with the product - why is that? Team members indicating unrealistic requests - why is that? Respect their opinions and go into a constructive conversation.
These are only one example of how each Scrum Value could be lived by the Product Owner.
Summary:
Using the Scrum Values as a guide for the Scrum Team how to behave during the entire Sprint will support raising trust. Without trust there will be a low level of transparency - the cornerstone for Scrum.
The more the team becomes skilled in living the Scrum Values, the more transparent the Increment will be.
Prompt
Together with your Scrum Team, evaluate how the Product Owner can live the Scrum Values even better.
How do you see that the values of Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness and Respect are lived? What can you do to make the Scrum Team live these even better?
I hope you find value in these short posts and if you are looking for more clarifications, feel free to take contact.
If you want to take a deeper dive into the core concepts we are covering in this blog series, then surely check out our Professional Scrum MasterY workshop. We have some scheduled in the coming period.
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