Being Agile, Doing Scrum: Scrum Pillars — Transparency
This is another in a series of posts aimed at helping Scrum Masters coach “team members in self-management and cross-functionality []including [l]eading, training, and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption.”
With a simple cut and paste, Scrum Masters can share this post weekly or once per sprint, concurrently adding some frivolity with several fun facts and content.
Note: Some posts come with an intro to provide background and additional information/tips, followed by the ‘cut/paste’ content that can be shared with the team.
Note: There are lots of fun facts and content. Feel free to pick and choose what to include/omit.
Check back next week for another post, and more content to share!
[For an index of all Being Agile, Doing Scrum posts click here.]
Background:
As highlighted last week, some educational posts should be brief and to the point. This week is one such post. We build off of lasts weeks post and in doing so:
- Continue highlighting the importance of learning.
- Continue creating a foundation for more detailed discussion in future posts.
Bonus Tip: Discuss the content in your Retrospective. Open up conversation about continued learning and ask the team if there are topics they want to learn more about, or experience(s) they can share with the team to help broaden knowledge.
Cut/Paste:
Last week we highlighted the Scrum pillars and Values. This week we focus on one specific pillar; Transparency
Let’s start with the non Scrum definition:
“The quality of being open to public scrutiny.” — OxfordLanguages
This is pretty clear but simplistic, and isn’t specific to Scrum. So what does the Scrum Guide state?
“Transparency: The emergent process and work must be visible to those performing the work as well as those receiving the work. With Scrum, important decisions are based on the perceived state of its three formal artifacts. Artifacts that have low transparency can lead to decisions that diminish value and increase risk. Transparency enables inspection. Inspection without transparency is misleading and wasteful.”
In his 2016 Scrum.org post Hiren Doshi adds:
“This means presenting the facts as is. All people involved — the customer, the CEO, individual contributors — are transparent in their day-to-day dealings with others. They all trust each other, and they have the courage to keep each other abreast of good news as well as bad news. Everyone strives and collectively collaborates for the common organizational objective, and no one has any hidden agenda.”
Why is transparency important? Without it:
- Team morale can suffer.
- We end up operating in an environment that lacks trust.
- There is a risk that the team isn’t focused on the right things.
- Measuring future work can become more difficult in part because an of a lack of accurately understanding the team’s velocity.
We should ask:
- Just how transparent is our team?
- Do we acknowledge errors/mistakes made during a sprint?
- Do you feel you work in a safe space where you can share your thoughts?
- Just how transparent our you?
We will discuss this at our next Retrospective.
Inspirational Quote:
“A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” — Dalai Lama
Fascinating Fact:
The most dangerous thing in your kitchen is … avocado!
According to a 2020 study, there is an “epidemic” of hand injuries related to cutting avocado’s with more than fifty-thousand avocado-related injuries recorded between 1998 and 2017. Women between 23 and 39 years of age were injured the most, especially on Sundays between April and July. You have been warned!
Word of the Day:
Abditive — Capable of hiding or concealing.
Example: “Dad found the baby under the abditive tablecloth during a game of hide-and-seek!”
National Day Calendar: June 9th
National Donald Duck Day
National Helen and Mitchell and Earl Day
National No Apologies Period Day
National Movie Night
It is also:
National Candy Month
National Great Outdoors Month
Born On This Day:
John Wayne: American actor (Green Berets, True Grit) (1907)
Peter Cushing: English actor (Dracula, Star Wars, Dr Who) (1913)
Miles Davis: American jazz musician, trumpeter and composer (1926)
Stevie Nicks: American rock singer-songwriter for Fleetwood Mac (1948)
Sally Ride: American astronaut and first American woman to go to space (1951)
Lenny Kravitz: American musician (1964)
Helena Bonham Carter: British actress (Harry Potter, Fight Club, The King’s Speech) (1966)
On This Day In History:
Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned King of Italy (1805)
“Dracula” by Irish author Bram Stoker is published in London (1897)
Baseball Hall of Fame center fielder Ty Cobb is first to collect 1,000 extra-base hits (1925)
The Ford Motor Company produces the last (and 15th million) Model T Ford (1927)
The first successful helicopter flight in US (1940)
EMI releases The Beatles’ album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in London (1967)
Twitter adds warning labels to warn about inaccuracies in US President Donald Trump’s tweets for the first time (2020)
