How to build Great Scrum Team

Guiding Principles of Scrum Frame work of Agile

The way Agile has 4 principles; the Scrum framework too has 5 principles prescribed to build a great and high performing team.

These Scrum Principles are Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, Courage

However every one gets this question,

How to implement these principle in real life?

Hello Team, Good morning !!!

How is it going? All good?

Do you really start your day with your team with such simple yet most effective way?

This is very small thing but has a great impact. The way we meet our family members everyday and greet them; treat your team member's the same way. When we wish our team members everyday with smile and treat them just like our family members then it build a great bond between us. This helps to implement basic principles of building great team just the way we have bond between our family member's.

Let's try to understand each principle and try to explore how we can effectively implement them within our team. I would like to share few tips based on my experience which worked for me & might work for you as well.

Let's understand things in sequence and step by step.

First Principle - Courage

I am sure you must be wondering why courage? Are we going in battle or what?

Courage is nothing but the willingness to accept any Challenge which looks difficult to achieve. Here as team we should have a courage to accept challenges in delivering software solutions or product we are working on or going to build. So team should have “courage” to accept the challenging work.

How to implement this value / principle:

As humans we are always scared of trying something new because of one thing "Fear of Failure". As Scrum Master / Agile Coach we have to build safe environment and take this "Fear of Failure" out of the equation from our team member's. We need to build the culture within team which will respect & accept Success & Failure both. Team should accept both & learn from both Success or Failure.

One failure will teach team 10 different ways to do things in a better way which even hundreds of Success will not teach them.

Start coaching your team on this & work with your organization or Management to create such learning environment within projects & organization. And soon you will start to see your teams exhibiting "Courage" in their way of working.

Second Principle - Focus

Most common thing everyone must have heard since our childhood is FOCUS. Our parent's teacher's often said this "Focus on your studies". Our sport's coach often say "Focus on your play". Focus keeps us away from distractions & help us achieve our Targets / Goals.

The Scrum team has to remain focused on their sprint goals through out the Sprint duration & keep consistency in achieving them sprint by sprint. There will be blockers, technical challenges etc. while working; but team has to stay focused on what they want to achieve by exploring solutions to the impediments.

Where there is will there is way isn't it?

How to implement this value / principle:

When we (entire Team) do sprint planning & set your sprint goal. It should be clear & measurable. It should clearly define what OUTCOME team is trying to achieve. Every day in daily scrum meetings re-iterate the Sprint Goal & days remaining to achieve our Goal with entire team. Simple yet very powerful technique to track the progress towards the sprint goal. This increases accountability within team.

Third Principle - Commitment

Commitment is a combination of Courage & Focus. Entire Scrum teams participate in sprint planning meeting & commit a sprint goal. Scrum team commit / promise to deliver & adhere to the sprint goal they have set collectively as Team. No matter what the impediment, challenge or technical blockers they face; team is committed & motivated that they will find out way through all and will achieve their sprint goal and deliver it.

The way Dabang bollywood movie star; Salman Khan says "Ek bar jo maine commitment kar di, to phir mai apne aap ki bhi nahi sunta" English Translation is "Once I commit then I don't even listen to myself"

How to implement this value / principle:

When we do sprint planning meetings team should have enough discussions. They should understand WHY, WHAT & HOW (how can be discussed in brief as its technical expertise space of team). Team member should know each other's skills & strength; they should have trust & faith in each other. They all should collectively commit the sprint goal and then every day in daily scrum meetings reiterate the Sprint Goal, days remaining to achieve it with entire team. This will also increases the sense of accountability in team members.

Fourth Principle - Respect

Trust & respect goes hand in hand. If we trust each other's capabilities & respect them then we can easily achieve anything as team. How can team achieve anything if team members do not get along well & trust each other to deliver their assigned tasks to the best of their abilities?

How to implement this value / principle:

Scrum master should build a social contract within a team & keep revisiting it after regular intervals. This will help to build ground rules for team & disciplined environment where each & every individual is treated same and with courtesy, politeness and kindness.

• Encourage your team members to express their opinion's & idea's and everyone in team should respect each others opinion's & idea's.

• Always one conversation at a time & listen to what others have to say before expressing your viewpoint.

• Always leave your designation / hierarchy out side meeting rooms.

• Never judge people.

• Appreciating each other even for small helps.

All these things will help to create trust and respect within team.

Fifth Principle - Openness

The biggest difference between Agile & waterfall is Openness. Everything is visible to everyone from Higher management till each team member in scrum team. Nothing is hidden & the beauty is scrum master is the servant leader working with the team not like traditional Project Manager who exhibits command & control leadership style.

How to implement this value / principle:

Use of Agile project management tools like Jira, confluence will increase clarity trust & openness within team. Agree as a team on measurement metrics ( detailed blog on metrics & measurement ) and measure team performance sprint by sprint. Share this metric with entire team at the end of each sprint specially in Retrospective meeting to do Inspect & Adapt. Appreciate team on their each small success. Discuss success & failure openly in retrospective meetings & find out ways how we can improve on failures.