5 Scrum Values: Complete Guide to Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness & Respect

The five Scrum values—commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect—enable the three pillars of Scrum (transparency, inspection, adaptation) to function effectively. Without these values, Scrum becomes mechanical ceremony execution that fails to achieve genuine empirical process control.

The five values work as an integrated system: courage without openness becomes recklessness; focus without respect becomes tunnel vision. When Scrum Teams genuinely commit to goals, courageously tackle problems, maintain focus, openly share challenges, and respect diverse perspectives, they unlock the framework's full potential.

This guide explores how each value manifests across Scrum roles, events, and artifacts—and how teams can cultivate these values to maximize effectiveness.

Quick Answer: Five Scrum Values at a Glance

Value	Core Definition	Why It Matters	Manifests Through
Commitment	Dedication to achieving team goals and delivering value	Builds accountability and trust; ensures team pursues Sprint and Product Goals persistently	Honoring Sprint Goals, supporting teammates, pursuing quality standards, maintaining sustainable pace
Courage	Willingness to tackle difficult problems, explore unknowns, and engage in respectful disagreements	Enables teams to address impediments, change direction when needed, and speak truth to power	Raising concerns early, questioning assumptions, admitting mistakes, experimenting with new approaches
Focus	Concentration on Sprint work and goals, prioritizing what creates most value	Prevents waste from context-switching and ensures team energy directs toward highest-value outcomes	Limited WIP, Sprint Goal alignment, minimizing interruptions, completing work before starting new items
Openness	Transparency about work, challenges, and learning; willingness to share feedback	Creates visibility that enables inspection and adaptation; builds trust across team and stakeholders	Sharing progress honestly, discussing impediments openly, soliciting feedback, admitting knowledge gaps
Respect	Recognition of team members as skilled professionals with diverse expertise	Fosters psychological safety where all perspectives are valued and constructive disagreement is possible	Listening actively, valuing different approaches, assuming positive intent, treating everyone with dignity

Understanding the Five Scrum Values

The five Scrum values represent the behavioral foundation that enables effective empiricism. Rather than prescriptive rules, these values guide how Scrum Teams interact, make decisions, and respond to complexity. Each value addresses specific challenges teams face when delivering valuable products in uncertain environments.

Commitment: Dedication to Goals and Quality

Commitment in Scrum means personal dedication to achieving team goals and supporting each other. This isn't commitment to completing every initially identified task—it's commitment to the Sprint Goal, Product Goal, and quality standards embodied in the Definition of Done.

How commitment manifests in Scrum:

• Product Owners commit to maximizing product value and making Product Backlog decisions that serve customer needs, even when stakeholder pressure pushes in different directions
• Developers commit to delivering Increments meeting the Definition of Done, to collaborating effectively, and to maintaining sustainable pace rather than heroic unsustainable efforts
• Scrum Masters commit to serving the team by removing impediments, facilitating events effectively, and coaching the organization in Scrum adoption
• Entire team commits to the Sprint Goal as the north star for Sprint activities, renegotiating scope while protecting the goal when unexpected complexity emerges

Commitment doesn't mean rigid adherence to plans. When inspection reveals better approaches or obstacles to the Sprint Goal, committed teams adapt their plan while maintaining dedication to the goal. This flexibility within commitment distinguishes Scrum from predictive project management approaches.

Real manifestation: A committed team discovering that initial technical approach won't achieve the Sprint Goal doesn't simply report failure at Sprint Review. Instead, team members collaborate to identify alternative approaches, potentially reducing scope while preserving the Sprint Goal. The Product Owner supports this by prioritizing Sprint Goal achievement over completing initially planned backlog items.

Courage: Tackling Difficult Problems

Courage enables Scrum Teams to address challenges that teams lacking psychological safety avoid. Courageous teams explore unknown territories, question established approaches, admit mistakes early, and engage in respectful disagreements. This value is essential for empirical process control because it enables honest inspection and bold adaptation.

How courage manifests in Scrum:

• Raising impediments early rather than hoping problems resolve themselves, even when doing so might make the raiser look responsible
• Admitting technical debt or quality issues to stakeholders during Sprint Review instead of hiding problems until they become critical
• Challenging decisions respectfully when team members see potential issues, regardless of who proposed the approach
• Experimenting with new approaches that might fail, treating failure as learning opportunity rather than something to avoid at all costs
• Speaking truth to organizational power when systemic issues prevent Scrum effectiveness, rather than working around problems silently

Courage requires psychological safety—the team environment where taking interpersonal risks doesn't result in punishment or humiliation. The Scrum Master plays a crucial role in fostering this safety, ensuring courageous behavior is rewarded rather than penalized.

Real manifestation: During Sprint Planning, a Developer courageously states uncertainty about technical feasibility of a high-priority item rather than agreeing to avoid conflict. The team uses this courageous transparency to adjust the plan, potentially splitting the item or investing in a spike to reduce uncertainty. This courage prevents the team from committing to a Sprint Goal that inspection would later reveal as unachievable.

Focus: Concentrating on Sprint Objectives

Focus means directing attention and energy toward Sprint work and Sprint Goals. In environments where teams face constant interruptions, competing priorities, and pressure to multitask, focus becomes a protective value that enables teams to deliver completed work rather than numerous partially finished items.

How focus manifests in Scrum:

• Sprint Goal serves as compass for daily decisions—when questions arise about priorities, the Sprint Goal provides clarity
• Limited work in progress ensures team members complete items collaboratively rather than starting many items individually
• Minimizing interruptions during Sprints by establishing working agreements about how urgent requests are handled
• Time-boxed events create boundaries that prevent discussions from consuming excessive time while ensuring sufficient depth
• Definition of Done enforcement maintains focus on quality and completion rather than maximizing feature starts

Focus doesn't mean ignoring everything outside the current Sprint. Product Owners maintain focus on long-term Product Goals while working on Sprint execution. Scrum Masters focus on team effectiveness and organizational impediment removal. The focus value prevents diffusion of effort across too many simultaneous concerns.

Real manifestation: A stakeholder requests an urgent feature mid-Sprint. Rather than immediately disrupting team focus, the Product Owner evaluates the request's urgency against the Sprint Goal. If truly critical, the Product Owner may collaborate with the team to end the Sprint early and replan. More commonly, the request is added to the Product Backlog for potential inclusion in future Sprints, preserving current Sprint focus.

Openness: Transparency and Learning

Openness creates the transparency that makes inspection possible. Open teams share progress honestly (including when things aren't going well), discuss challenges candidly, solicit feedback actively, and admit knowledge gaps without fear. This value directly enables the transparency pillar of Scrum.

How openness manifests in Scrum:

• Honest progress reporting during Daily Scrums—team members share actual status, not status they wish they could report
• Visible work through Sprint Backlogs and other information radiators that anyone can inspect
• Impediment transparency rather than hiding problems until they cascade into crises
• Soliciting feedback during Sprint Reviews from stakeholders, treating feedback as valuable input rather than criticism
• Learning culture where teams openly discuss what isn't working during Sprint Retrospectives and experiment with improvements

Openness requires reciprocal trust. When teams demonstrate openness but face punishment for sharing difficult realities, openness disappears rapidly. Leadership and Product Owners must receive openness without shooting the messenger, treating transparency as valuable information rather than failure.

Real manifestation: Midway through a Sprint, the team recognizes they've significantly underestimated work complexity and won't achieve the Sprint Goal as originally understood. Rather than working overtime silently, team members openly discuss the situation during the Daily Scrum. The Product Owner joins the conversation, and together they adapt the plan—potentially reducing scope while maintaining the core Sprint Goal. This openness enables early adaptation rather than last-day surprises.

Respect: Valuing Diverse Perspectives

Respect acknowledges team members as capable professionals with valuable expertise and perspectives. Respectful teams listen actively, value different approaches, assume positive intent when disagreements arise, and treat everyone with dignity regardless of role or tenure. Respect creates the foundation for healthy conflict and collaborative problem-solving.

How respect manifests in Scrum:

• Listening actively during discussions rather than waiting to speak, genuinely considering others' perspectives
• Valuing diverse approaches rather than dismissing ideas different from one's own experience
• Assuming positive intent when disagreements occur—treating conflict as difference in perspective rather than personal attack
• Avoiding micromanagement by respecting team self-management capabilities
• Treating all roles equally while recognizing different accountabilities—Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers collaborate as peers

Respect doesn't mean avoiding disagreement. Respectful teams engage in robust debates about approaches, techniques, and priorities. The respect ensures disagreement focuses on ideas and outcomes rather than becoming personal. Teams lacking respect suppress disagreement to avoid conflict, losing the cognitive diversity that leads to better solutions.

Real manifestation: During Sprint Planning, a senior Developer proposes a technical approach. A junior Developer respectfully questions whether a simpler approach might work. Rather than dismissing the question based on seniority, the senior Developer engages respectfully, explaining technical constraints. The discussion leads to a hybrid approach that's simpler than the original proposal while addressing the constraints. This respectful exchange produces a better outcome than either individual would have reached alone.

How the Five Values Work Together

The five Scrum values function as an interconnected system where each value reinforces the others. Understanding these interdependencies helps teams recognize when absence of one value undermines the entire system.

Commitment + Courage: Teams need courage to commit to challenging goals. Without courage, commitment becomes limited to safe, easily achievable objectives that don't stretch capabilities or deliver maximum value. Conversely, courage without commitment leads to starting ambitious initiatives that teams abandon when they become difficult.

Courage + Openness: Courage enables teams to be open about challenges, mistakes, and uncertainties. Without courage, teams hide problems until they become critical. Openness without courage manifests as sharing only comfortable information while avoiding difficult truths that stakeholders need to hear.

Openness + Respect: Respect creates the psychological safety that makes openness possible. When teams lack respect, openness becomes dangerous—people who share vulnerabilities or admit mistakes face ridicule or punishment. Openness without respect becomes weaponized transparency where shared information is used against people.

Respect + Focus: Respecting team members means protecting their ability to focus on Sprint work rather than subjecting them to constant interruptions and competing priorities. Focus without respect manifests as ignoring team concerns about unsustainable pace or inadequate technical practices.

Focus + Commitment: Focus enables teams to deliver on commitments by concentrating effort on Sprint Goals. Commitment without focus leads to diffused effort across numerous initiatives, achieving little. Focus without commitment means concentrating on easy work rather than challenging goals that deliver value.

Values and the Three Pillars of Scrum

The five values enable the three pillars of Scrum—transparency, inspection, and adaptation—creating the empirical process control that distinguishes Scrum from predictive approaches.

Values Enable Transparency

Openness directly creates transparency by ensuring teams share actual status, challenges, and capabilities. Without openness, teams create fictional transparency—visible artifacts that don't reflect reality.

Courage enables teams to make difficult information transparent even when doing so is uncomfortable. Teams lacking courage hide problems until they explode.

Respect creates the psychological safety where transparency is possible without punishment. When transparency leads to blame, teams revert to opacity quickly.

Values Enable Inspection

Focus ensures teams actually inspect work rather than rushing to start the next item. Teams lacking focus skip proper inspection, discovering quality issues only when they've cascaded into major problems.

Openness makes artifacts and processes available for inspection by everyone who needs visibility—not just those with special access or insider knowledge.

Courage enables teams to acknowledge what inspection reveals even when findings are uncomfortable. Inspection without courage leads to seeing problems but pretending they don't exist.

Values Enable Adaptation

Courage empowers teams to adapt when inspection reveals better approaches or obstacles. Adaptation often means admitting current approaches aren't working—requiring courage to change direction.

Commitment ensures teams follow through on adaptations rather than reverting to comfortable old approaches when change becomes difficult.

Respect enables teams to consider diverse adaptation options from all team members rather than only accepting ideas from senior or vocal individuals.

Focus directs adaptation efforts toward improvements that support Sprint and Product Goals rather than changes that feel good but don't advance objectives.

Values Across Scrum Events

Each Scrum event creates opportunities to practice and reinforce the five values.

Sprint Planning

• Commitment: Team commits to Sprint Goal while being realistic about capacity and complexity
• Openness: Developers openly discuss capacity, technical constraints, and dependencies
• Courage: Team courageously challenges unrealistic expectations or unclear Product Backlog items
• Respect: Product Owner respects team's technical expertise; team respects Product Owner's product vision
• Focus: Entire team focuses on crafting achievable Sprint Goal aligned with Product Goal

Daily Scrum

• Focus: 15-minute timebox maintains focus while ensuring adequate communication
• Openness: Team members openly share actual progress, not aspirational status
• Courage: Developers courageously raise impediments and ask for help early
• Commitment: Team demonstrates commitment by adjusting plan daily to achieve Sprint Goal
• Respect: Team members respect each other's time by staying focused and on-topic

Sprint Review

• Openness: Team demonstrates actual Increment, including what didn't work as planned
• Respect: Team respectfully solicits stakeholder feedback without becoming defensive
• Courage: Product Owner courageously adapts Product Backlog based on feedback and market changes
• Focus: Discussion focuses on Increment and Product Goal progress, not off-topic concerns
• Commitment: Team's commitment to quality is visible through adherence to Definition of Done

Sprint Retrospective

• Openness: Team openly discusses what worked, what didn't, and why
• Respect: All team members' perspectives are valued; blame is absent
• Courage: Team courageously identifies systemic issues requiring organizational change
• Commitment: Team commits to specific improvements, not vague intentions
• Focus: Retrospective focuses on highest-leverage improvements, not every possible change

Values Across Scrum Roles

While the entire Scrum Team embodies all five values, each role demonstrates values in role-specific ways.

Product Owner and Values

• Commitment: Commits to maximizing product value and making Product Backlog transparent and ordered by value
• Courage: Makes difficult prioritization decisions, saying "no" to valuable features to maintain focus on highest-value work
• Focus: Maintains focus on Product Goal while engaging with numerous stakeholders
• Openness: Transparently shares product vision, priorities, and rationale for decisions
• Respect: Respects Developers' technical expertise and Scrum Master's process expertise, avoiding micromanagement

Scrum Master and Values

• Commitment: Commits to serving team effectiveness and organizational Scrum adoption
• Courage: Courageously addresses organizational impediments even when politically difficult
• Focus: Maintains focus on empiricism and self-management rather than command-and-control shortcuts
• Openness: Openly discusses team dysfunctions and organizational impediments
• Respect: Respects team's ability to self-manage; facilitates rather than directs

Developers and Values

• Commitment: Commits to Sprint Goal and Definition of Done, maintaining quality under pressure
• Courage: Courageously raises technical concerns, refactors code, and admits mistakes early
• Focus: Maintains focus on Sprint Goal, limiting work in progress and minimizing technical debt
• Openness: Openly shares progress, impediments, and knowledge with team and stakeholders
• Respect: Respects teammates' skills and approaches, engages in pair programming and code reviews supportively

Values vs Principles vs Practices

Understanding the relationship between Scrum values, principles, and practices helps teams avoid mechanical Scrum adoption.

Values: Behavioral Foundation

Values are the attitudes and behaviors that guide team interactions and decisions. They're not specific actions but rather the mindset that informs actions. Teams can't mandate values through policy—they must be cultivated through example, reinforcement, and consequences.

Examples: Commitment to goals, courage to raise concerns, focus on Sprint objectives, openness about challenges, respect for diverse expertise.

Principles: Fundamental Truths

Principles are the fundamental truths underlying Scrum's design. They explain why Scrum works the way it does. Principles include empirical process control, self-organization, time-boxing, and iterative development.

Examples: Work is best managed through transparency, inspection, and adaptation; teams are most effective when self-organizing; fixed timeboxes create rhythm and forcing functions for decision-making.

Practices: Specific Actions

Practices are the specific actions, techniques, and tools teams use to apply Scrum. The Scrum Guide prescribes some practices (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, etc.) while leaving many to team discretion.

Prescribed practices: Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, Definition of Done

Complementary practices (not in Scrum Guide): User stories, story points, velocity, burn-down charts, planning poker, task boards

Relationship Between Values, Principles, and Practices

Values → Principles: Values enable principles to function. Empirical process control (principle) requires openness and courage (values) to make inspection honest and adaptation bold.

Principles → Practices: Principles inform which practices are effective. The empiricism principle explains why Sprint Retrospectives (practice) create value—they're structured inspection and adaptation of team process.

Values → Practices: Values guide how practices are executed. Daily Scrums (practice) without focus and openness (values) become status reports for managers rather than team self-management.

Building Scrum Values in Your Team

Values cannot be mandated through policy—they must be cultivated intentionally through leadership example, reinforcement, and consequences. Here are practical strategies for building each value:

Cultivating Commitment

• Make goals visible and meaningful: Ensure Sprint Goals and Product Goals are clear, compelling, and connected to customer value
• Honor team autonomy: Let teams determine how to achieve goals rather than micromanaging approaches
• Celebrate commitment to goals over task completion: Recognize when teams adapt plans to achieve Sprint Goals rather than rigidly following initial plans
• Address broken commitments constructively: When commitments aren't met, focus on learning and process improvement rather than blame
• Model commitment as leadership: Leaders demonstrate commitment by following through on promises and supporting teams persistently

Cultivating Courage

• Create psychological safety: Ensure people can raise concerns, admit mistakes, and propose ideas without fear of punishment or ridicule
• Reward truth-telling: Explicitly thank people who raise difficult issues early, even when messages are uncomfortable
• Treat failure as learning: When experiments fail, focus on what was learned rather than who to blame
• Address violations publicly: When someone is punished for courageous behavior, address it immediately and visibly
• Model courage as leadership: Leaders demonstrate courage by admitting mistakes, changing direction based on evidence, and addressing systemic issues

Cultivating Focus

• Protect Sprint focus: Establish clear policies about mid-Sprint disruptions and honor those boundaries
• Make Sprint Goals central: Start every conversation about priorities by referencing the Sprint Goal
• Visualize work in progress: Make WIP limits visible and discuss when work starts before previous items complete
• Timebox ruthlessly: Honor event timeboxes strictly to demonstrate that focus matters more than exhaustive discussion
• Model focus as leadership: Leaders demonstrate focus by respecting team concentration time and avoiding constant interruptions

Cultivating Openness

• Respond constructively to transparency: When teams share bad news, respond by problem-solving rather than blaming
• Make work visible: Use physical or digital boards that anyone can inspect without special access
• Ask for openness explicitly: Regularly ask "What aren't we talking about?" and "What concerns haven't been raised?"
• Share leadership challenges: Leaders model openness by sharing organizational constraints and their own uncertainties
• Address opacity promptly: When information hiding occurs, address it directly and explore underlying fears

Cultivating Respect

• Listen actively in meetings: Demonstrate attention through eye contact, paraphrasing, and building on others' ideas
• Invite all voices: Actively solicit input from quieter team members rather than letting vocal individuals dominate
• Address disrespect immediately: When disrespectful behavior occurs, address it privately but promptly
• Value diverse approaches: When multiple solutions are proposed, explore merits of each rather than defaulting to senior person's preference
• Model respect as leadership: Leaders demonstrate respect by genuinely considering team input and explaining decisions when team recommendations aren't followed

Common Misconceptions About Scrum Values

Several misconceptions about Scrum values lead teams astray:

"Values Are Nice-to-Have Culture Elements"

Misconception: Scrum values are soft culture elements separate from "real" Scrum (events, roles, artifacts).

Reality: Values are foundational to Scrum functioning. Without values, Scrum ceremonies become cargo cult—going through motions without achieving benefits. The Scrum Guide explicitly states that values "give direction to the work, actions, and behavior of the Scrum Team."

"We Can Mandate Values Through Policy"

Misconception: Organizations can create policies requiring commitment, courage, etc., and teams will demonstrate these values.

Reality: Values must be cultivated through example, reinforcement, and consequences. Policies stating "we value courage" while punishing truth-telling create cynicism, not courage. Values emerge from consistent leadership behavior and team culture over time.

"Some Values Are More Important Than Others"

Misconception: Teams can prioritize certain values (e.g., focus and commitment) while deemphasizing others (e.g., courage and openness).

Reality: The five values work as an integrated system. Commitment without courage leads to persistent pursuit of failing approaches. Focus without openness creates tunnel vision that ignores critical feedback. All five values must be present for Scrum to function effectively.

"Values Replace Accountability"

Misconception: Emphasizing respect and psychological safety means avoiding difficult conversations about performance.

Reality: Values enable accountability rather than replacing it. Respect creates the foundation for honest performance conversations. Courage empowers addressing performance issues directly. Openness ensures expectations are clear. Values make accountability possible without blame or fear.

"Values Are Individual Rather Than Team Attributes"

Misconception: Scrum values describe individual behavior—some team members demonstrate values while others don't.

Reality: While individuals embody values personally, Scrum values are fundamentally team attributes. A team where some members are open while others hide information isn't an "open team." Values must be shared across the entire Scrum Team to create the trust and psychological safety that enables empiricism.

Assessing Value Adoption in Teams

Teams can assess their value adoption through observation and reflection. These indicators suggest strong value adoption:

Commitment Indicators

• Sprint Goals are rarely abandoned; when they are, it's for compelling reasons articulated clearly
• Team members support each other voluntarily rather than working in isolated silos
• Definition of Done is maintained under pressure; quality doesn't degrade when deadlines approach
• Team demonstrates sustainable pace rather than cycles of heroic overtime

Courage Indicators

• Team raises impediments and concerns early, even when doing so is uncomfortable
• Sprint Reviews include honest discussion of what didn't work, not just successes
• Team experiments with new approaches despite uncertainty about outcomes
• Individuals admit mistakes promptly rather than hiding or deflecting

Focus Indicators

• Work in progress remains low; team completes items collaboratively rather than starting many individually
• Mid-Sprint interruptions are rare and handled through clear policies when they occur
• Conversations reference Sprint Goal frequently as decision-making guide
• Team declines low-value work confidently to protect focus on priorities

Openness Indicators

• Daily Scrums include honest progress reports, including when things aren't going well
• Sprint Backlog and other artifacts are visible to anyone who needs information
• Team solicits feedback actively rather than avoiding potentially critical input
• Team members admit knowledge gaps and ask for help without embarrassment

Respect Indicators

• All team members contribute in meetings; quiet individuals are actively invited to share
• Disagreements focus on ideas and approaches rather than becoming personal
• Team members assume positive intent when conflicts arise
• Senior and junior team members' ideas receive equal consideration

Conclusion

The five Scrum values—commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect—transform the Scrum framework from mechanical ceremony into effective empiricism. These values weren't arbitrary additions to the Scrum Guide; they codify the essential behaviors that enable teams to inspect their work honestly and adapt their approach boldly in complex environments.

Values enable the three pillars of Scrum. Openness and courage create transparency. Focus and openness enable meaningful inspection. Courage and commitment drive adaptation. Without these values, teams conduct Scrum ceremonies without achieving Scrum benefits—holding Daily Scrums that hide problems, Sprint Reviews that avoid difficult feedback, and Retrospectives that identify improvements never implemented.

Critical insights for teams:

• Values require cultivation, not mandates: Organizations cannot create policies requiring courage or openness—these behaviors emerge from consistent leadership example, reinforcement of desired behaviors, and consequences for violations
• Values manifest differently across roles: While all Scrum Team members embody all values, Product Owners demonstrate courage through prioritization decisions, Scrum Masters through addressing organizational impediments, and Developers through technical quality maintenance under pressure
• Values enable practices: Daily Scrums, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives provide little value when teams execute them without embodying underlying values—openness makes inspection honest, courage makes adaptation bold, focus ensures follow-through
• Values build over time: Teams new to Scrum shouldn't expect immediate value adoption—psychological safety, trust, and shared commitment develop gradually through consistent demonstration and reinforcement

As you implement Scrum, pay attention to values alongside practices. When Scrum isn't delivering expected benefits, examine whether values are present. Are people openly sharing challenges? Courageously addressing impediments? Maintaining focus on Sprint Goals? Respecting diverse perspectives? Committing to quality under pressure? If not, no amount of ceremony execution will achieve genuine agility.

Explore each value in depth through the linked articles below to understand how successful teams cultivate these essential behaviors.

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