What methods could a Scrum Master use to help a newly formed team understand and embrace Scrum values and principles?

A Scrum Master plays a crucial role in guiding a newly formed team to understand and embrace the values and principles of Scrum. This is a foundational step for creating a successful and high-performing team. It requires a combination of education, coaching, and practical application. The Scrum Master acts as a teacher, mentor, and facilitator, helping the team not only understand the theory of Scrum but also live and breathe its values. The approach needs to be tailored to the team's specific needs and personalities, and needs to be an ongoing process.

First and foremost, the Scrum Master needs to begin with education. This means clearly explaining the five core Scrum values: Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness, and Respect. They would explain the meaning behind each of these values and how they relate to working effectively as a Scrum team. For example, the Scrum Master could facilitate a team workshop where they go through each value in detail. They would use real life examples from the work environment to show how each value can be applied. So, for example, for the value of "Courage," the Scrum Master might explain that it means being willing to take risks, and be willing to speak up about impediments or problems. They also explain how the Scrum values are the basis for the Scrum principles such as transparency, inspection and adaptation, and how these principles apply to the Scrum framework. The Scrum Master can also provide resources for the team to review and educate themselves. This ensures that the team has a shared understanding of what Scrum is and what values and principles it is based upon.

Once the team has a foundational understanding of the values and principles, the Scrum Master moves onto practical application. This includes facilitating the first few sprints with extra focus on the correct application of Scrum. For example, during the first sprint planning session, the Scrum Master may spend more time explaining the importance of creating a clear Sprint Goal and how this aligns to the value of Focus and Commitment. They would guide the team to create a realistic Sprint Goal based on capacity and value. During the first few daily scrums, the Scrum Master might take a more active facilitation role, ensuring the team is focused on the three key questions and that they use the daily scrum for planning and to remove impediments, and that they are respectful of each other's contributions, therefore demonstrating openness and respect. Similarly, in sprint reviews, the Scrum Master might highlight the importance of transparency in demonstrating the increment and actively collecting feedback from stakeholders, aligning to the value of Openness.

The Scrum Master also uses retrospectives to reinforce the values and principles of Scrum. They would facilitate open discussions where the team can reflect on how well they have applied the Scrum values and principles during the sprint. For example, if the team had difficulty making progress due to unclear requirements, the Scrum Master might guide the discussion to explore how the principle of transparency might improve communication with the product owner or what process improvement might be made. They can also suggest that team members include action items in the sprint backlog for process improvements that will help them to better understand and live the scrum values and principles. The retrospective is used to improve future performance, while reinforcing the values and principles.

The Scrum Master uses storytelling and real life examples to illustrate how the values and principles can be applied. Sharing real examples, from their own experiences or from others, can help the team connect with the values and understand their practical implications. For example, the Scrum Master might share stories about teams who were successful because of their commitment and transparency. The stories should be relatable and highlight the benefits of applying the Scrum values and principles. They will be clear, relevant and focus on how to understand Scrum.

The Scrum Master will also coach by asking powerful questions, rather than giving instructions. They might ask questions such as "how does this action align with the value of respect?" or "what value are we delivering with this action?". This helps the team to think about their actions in relation to the Scrum values and to make their own conclusions and decisions based on what they have learnt. The questions help the team to connect the work they do to the core values of Scrum.

Another method is to create visual aids to reinforce the values. For instance, the Scrum Master might create a visual display that lists the Scrum values and principles and provides short descriptions of what each means in practice. They can refer to this during team meetings or in team spaces, reminding the team about the core foundations of Scrum. The Scrum Master encourages the team to display these values in a place that is easily seen.

The Scrum Master acts as a role model, demonstrating the values and principles in their own behavior and actions. This is important because the team learns as much from observing behavior as they do from reading or listening. For example, if a team member makes a mistake, the Scrum Master responds with respect and focuses on learning from the mistake rather than assigning blame, demonstrating the value of openness. Similarly, when they are asked for a decision, the Scrum Master will try to empower the team to make the decision for themselves.

Finally, it’s important to emphasize that embracing the Scrum values and principles is a journey, not a destination. The Scrum Master provides ongoing support and coaching to help the team deepen their understanding and application of these values. It’s not a one-off training session but a process of continuous improvement. By creating a culture where team members are actively involved in the process, and they are supported to experiment and make mistakes, the Scrum Master sets the team up for success, and helps them to understand the true benefits of working with Scrum.

In summary, a Scrum Master uses education, practical application, retrospectives, storytelling, coaching with powerful questions, creating visual aids, acting as a role model and providing ongoing support to help a new team understand and embrace the values and principles of Scrum. By applying these techniques, the Scrum Master can foster a strong foundation for the team to be successful.