When only quality is not enough.

You might have heard some times things like “Why should we care about Sprint velocity? Should we not care about Sprint quality?” or “I do not use Scrum, because I prefer to focus on in quality rather than velocity.”. Well, If you have heard that in a company meeting, it means the Scrum Masters of that company have a lot of work to do.

Quality should be a company standard, independently of the methodology or framework you use. Quality should be a foundation, a pillar, it is a “by default” value and it cant depend of the way you work. In fact, in many books, guides and other works about Scrum you will find this motto: “Quality is not negotiable”.

It is a common mistake to think that, when a Scrum Master works on other metrics such as speed or adaptability, he/she is leaving quality aside, but this is not the case (or, at least, it shouldn’t be). It is also possible for a first-time Scrum Master to fall into this error, but it is something that must be detected and corrected quickly. So, if you think this is happening in a team, you might need to contact the Scrum Master, because it is a clear symptom that something is not working as it should.

Agile values do not mention about quality because the quality standards are supposed to be consistent and the methodology we use with this foundation of quality should enable you to gain improvements in other parameters.

Scrum starts when we become more ambitious and think that only quality is not enough. Scrum framework is not exclusive to quality, but complementary. Quality must be a company level commitment and an Agile coach or Scrum team would never want to lower it. Besides, any of these roles should not have that capability.

Scrum starts when we want to build better performance and working environment based upon quality. And the Scrum Master is the person in charge of catalyzing this process by making sure that the company internalizes and understands the Scrum values.