Actual values are the behavior and skills that are valued within the ‘fellowship’. The fellowship being the group of people pursuing some—noble—goal.

The Scrum Guide from 2016 pulls the Scrum values back into its center. Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland call it the heart of Scrum.

The agile and lean frameworks, methods, and practices—like XP, Scrum and the Kanban Method—each have their own set of values. The total set counts 17(!) unique values:

  1. simplicity;
  2. communication;
  3. feedback;
  4. focus;
  5. courage (2×)
  6. openness;
  7. commitment;
  8. respect (3×);
  9. agreement;
  10. balance;
  11. collaboration;
  12. customer focus;
  13. flow;
  14. leadership;
  15. respect;
  16. transparency; and
  17. understanding.

The long list of values reminds me of a joke that emerged during the UNIX standardization battles:

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

How can you live all those values? Which one do you pick? Which value do you focus on?

Perhaps picking your 3–5 top values, share them with your fellowship, and then dot vote the result to distill 3–5 fellowship values: behavior and skills that are valued by most or all.

Perhaps gauging them on how they contribute to the Fantastic Five may help:

  1. Abundance—The byproducts of already having abundance rather than how much.
  2. Livelihood—The byproducts of doing, rather than what you will do.
  3. Health—All that your fantastic health makes possible.
  4. Relationships—The results of having a new or an improved relationship rather than who.
  5. Appearance—The effects of being pleased with yourself rather than diets, time lines, and body weight.

Anyway, what do you think?

Published by Martien van Steenbergen

Martien is a Master Agile & Lean Trainer & Coach.

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