How Do the Scrum Values Bring Empiricism to Life

If pillars of empiricism serve as the skeleton of Scrum, then values of the framework act as flesh, muscle, joints and tissue that dress up the bones bringing it to life. Read on to explore how.

Empiricism — rather dry, isn’t it. Objective. Scientific. Distanced. Fact-based. Rigid, I might say. Mechanical. Where is the human, I always wondered. Where is the person experiencing empiricism. How can they really honestly execute empiricism at regular intervals — and what happens when the going gets tough.

In this post, I am going to explore how each of the four forums of empiricism (aka. Scrum’s inspect-and-adapt events) are supported by the Values from the perspective of transparency, inspection and adaptation. In each section, I will first highlight the purpose of the event, then dedicate a bullet point to transparency, inspection and adaptation and explore how the Values bring them to life.

Sprint Planning

The goal of the Sprint Planning is to create a plan for the next sprint through the co-creation of a Sprint Backlog. To achieve this, various Scrum artefacts and other data is made transparent for the team to inspect, including, for example, the Product Backlog, the Definition of Done and delivery trends.

• Being committed to the Product Goal helps the team invoke openness to make any artefacts and other data transparent which will serve as foundation for empiricism. Sometimes, creating transparency can be difficult because the team may not “look good”. Still, team members can draw on their commitment and courage to do the right thing. This, hopefully, will enable them to accept and respect whatever they find and bring it to the fore regardless. With this action, they also model respect for their stakeholders and PO and create a trustworthy environment.
• Once artefacts and data are made transparent, the team practices focus to inspect them during Sprint Planning. The team respects the PO when they inspect the ordering of the Product Backlog and when needed, they take courage to challenge the ordering decisions openly as they are likely to better understand the technical dependencies between PBIs — they do this out of commitment to the bettering of the product. The team also shows courage when they decide to tackle tough problems in the sprint.
• The team focuses on collaborating on the “why, what and how” of the Sprint Backlog, adapting and formulating the Sprint Goal, the selected PBIs and the plan to deliver them. They focus on creating a plan for an Increment that takes them one step closer to the Product Goal, a commitment of the team. They respect the complex environment they work in, and show courage in accepting that they can’t necessarily come up with a complete and final plan for the Sprint.

Daily Scrum

The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work.

— Scrum Guide 2020

• Creating transparency regarding progress towards the Sprint Goal can be quite demanding. It takes courage to openly admit when we are lagging behind, when we are stuck or when we are in uncharted territory and it is simply impossible to know how long some things are going to take. At the same time, however hard it is, creating this sort of transparency elicits mutual respect in team members: the person admitting difficulties shows respect to their peers by communicating with openness. In return, team members appreciate and respect the person who is stuck for opening up and creating transparency. This sort of mutual respect will only exist between team members who trust one another.
• When inspecting progress towards the Sprint Goal, team members create openness when speaking clearly about the work they are doing and show courage when they communicate any impediments that might be in their way. Team members listen to each other with focus and respect.
• Being committed to the Sprint Goal, the team adapts the plan and the selected PBIs if needed. Adaptation might need courage — people who are less familiar with the nature of complex work might want to know why adaptation is being made, “after everything has been scoped out in detail”. The team is open about the adaptations that are being made, enabling transparency for the next Daily Scrum. In spite of any alterations, team members keep the focus of the Sprint, the Sprint Goal.

Sprint Review

The purpose of the Sprint Review is to inspect the outcome of the Sprint and determine future adaptations.

— Scrum Guide 2020

• During this event, attendees turn their focus to the Increment that is presented. Making the this artefact transparent and having it held against the commitments of Scrum might require openness and courage from the Scrum Team. If it is, members may lean on the respect they feel towards the Stakeholders, the Organisation or the Customers.
• Attendees then inspect the artefacts and commitments with openness and respect what they find. They assume that the Scrum Team did the best it could during the Sprint. The Scrum Team communicates openly about the challenges and impediments faced during the Sprint — they practise courage when they expose what was done and not done as well as the decisions they made during the Sprint.
• The Scrum Team is open to take in feedback and do so with respect. Based on the feedback, the team commits to updating the Product Backlog with focus towards the Product Goal. Stakeholders show respect to the Scrum Team and their work when they give feedback and trust them as professionals.

Sprint Retrospective

The purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness.

— Scrum Guide 2020

• Members of the Scrum Team bring transparency to life through their commitment for the Product Goal and to the Team itself. Respect for the Organisation, the Stakeholders, Customers and Scrum Team members will also help create an open environment where the Sprint, its goals or metrics, and the observations of the Scrum Team can be inspected.
• The Scrum Team focuses on the data made transparent. They are open to take it in and accept what they find with respect. They show courage when they do not attempt to diminish the importance or diverge to other, less important but better looking data. They face difficult topics that they need to discuss with openness and courage. Still, they treat one another with respect, assuming best intentions at all times. They are committed to learn together and elevate the team.
• They focus on improving together as a team and they have courage to come up with new and fresh ideas to improve subsequent Sprints. Once team members have a proper outcome for the Sprint Retrospective, they commit to pursuing it as one.

Conclusion

While writing this piece, I came to understand how each pillar of empiricism is supported by the values of Scrum.

• Transparency can be directly linked back to the value of openness. It is brought to life by a sense commitment to the goals of the team, the organisation and the product. It is also enabled by the respect that members of the Scrum Team feel towards one another and their environment. Team members rely on focus when they decide what needs to be made transparent to enable effective empiricism. To create transparency, team members might need a lot of courage at times.
• Inspection can be directly linked back to the value of focus. This pillar is brought to life by openness in that the team openly discusses what has been made transparent to them. This might put members in vulnerable positions which they counter balance with courage and respect. Courage is shown when people openly discuss challenges and difficulties. This, in turn, might lead to growing respect towards the speaker.
• Adaptation can be directly linked back to the value of commitment and courage. As the team is committed to its goals, and to the success of the product they work on, they will be open about the adaptations they will make. Their focus is to improve the product or the process of delivery.

Agree? Disagree? Have different thoughts? Please leave a comment below.

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