Scrum Values Retrospective

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Evaluate recent team working habits against the five Scrum values to produce a concrete behavioral commitment for the upcoming work cycle.

Use it when: Use at the end of a sprint or iteration when team dynamics feel off track, after onboarding new teammates to Agile practices, or when setting behavioral baselines.

Skip it when: Skip when the team has urgent operational breakdowns requiring immediate technical root-cause analysis or post-mortem incident response.

Group arrangement: Individual silent reflection, assigned subgroups or whole room for column sorting, and whole-group discussion

Timing: UWT facilitation plan providing 50 minutes for reflection, clustering, prioritized discussion, and commitment selection.

Materials and tools

• Whiteboard or large wall space (or online whiteboard platform with voting functionality for remote/hybrid)
• Sticky notes (at least 15 per person)
• Markers or pens (1 per person)
• Dot stickers for voting (3 per person)
• Printed prompt sheet with Scrum values and guiding questions (as provided in participant_materials, 1 per person)

Before participants arrive

1. Draw 5 vertical columns on the board labeled: Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness, and Respect.
2. Place sticky notes, markers, voting dots, and printed prompt sheets at each seat or work area.

Say this to open

Welcome. In this retrospective we are stepping back from daily tasks to inspect how we work together through the lens of the five Scrum values: Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness, and Respect. For each value, write specific examples of where our team lived up to it and where we fell short over the past cycle. Focus on observable team behaviors and shared practices, not personal attacks.

How to run it

1. Introduce values and write silent reflections 10 minutes

   Explain the five columns. Give everyone 8 minutes of silent writing. Each person writes observations on separate sticky notes: positive examples of embodying a value or clear gaps where the team struggled. A neutral example: under Focus, 'Our daily goals were clear until unexpected urgent requests pulled two engineers away midweek.' Participants write as many notes as they wish. Anyone may choose to keep notes private or pass on posting them, per our access guidelines.

2. Post and sort in assigned teams or whole room 10 minutes

   Participants post notes under matching headers. For 10 to 24 people, assign 2 to 5 people per column. For 4 to 9 people, review columns together as a room or assign one person per column. Teams take 6 minutes to merge duplicates and label theme clusters. With the remaining time, one spokesperson per column gives a strictly timed 30-second summary naming their column clusters.

3. Vote and prioritize discussion 4 minutes

   Distribute 3 voting dots to each participant. Give the group 3 minutes to vote silently on the clusters or topics they consider most important to address in the next sprint. The facilitator tallies the votes and announces the top two clusters receiving the most dots for whole-group discussion.

4. Analyze challenges and propose actions 18 minutes

   Open the floor to address the two prioritized clusters, spending 9 minutes on each. Facilitate open dialogue across the room, limiting individual comments to 1 minute to hear diverse perspectives. Aim for four to six distinct comments per cluster rather than hearing from every participant. Prompt the team to identify systemic friction and draft practical process tweaks. Write proposed actions visibly beside the columns on the board.

5. Commit to one focus value and debrief 8 minutes

   Ask the group to review proposed improvements and select one Scrum value to consciously emphasize throughout the upcoming sprint. Record this chosen value and the concrete team agreement on the board. Close by presenting debrief question 3 to confirm how the team will track this change, inviting two or three spontaneous responses. Select questions 1 or 2 if extra reflection time remains.

Debrief questions

• Which Scrum value was easiest for our team to demonstrate in this past cycle, and why?
• What system or schedule friction made our chosen value hardest to uphold?
• How will we notice during daily standup whether we are sticking to our agreed change?

Finished output: A board of categorized behavioral observations and one agreed team commitment linked to a specific Scrum value for the upcoming sprint.

Remote

Set up an online whiteboard with five labeled columns corresponding to the values. Keep card creation anonymous during the 8-minute writing phase. Assign participants to breakout rooms or designated columns to organize clusters. Use the platform digital voting tool for prioritizing clusters. Run the discussion over voice with video optional, typing action items directly into the shared board.

Hybrid

All participants, whether in person or remote, submit notes directly to the shared digital whiteboard via laptops or mobile devices. Display the board on the in-room projector. The facilitator alternates explicitly between remote and in-room participants during discussion and voting.

Access and participation choices

• Provide large-print printed handouts of the five values and guiding questions.
• Allow participants to contribute notes anonymously or speak their points aloud to a scribe.
• Any participant may pass on placing public notes or speaking during the discussion.

If the session gets stuck

Observations turn into personal accusations against specific team members.

Intervene immediately and remind the group to focus on work processes, environment, and team agreements rather than individuals.

One value receives all the notes while other columns stay completely empty.

Acknowledge the heavy focus on that topic, then invite the room to reflect on the quieter values for two minutes to check if anything was overlooked.

Terms used here

• Scrum Values: Five guiding behavioral principles defined in Scrum: Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness, and Respect.
• Sprint: A fixed timebox of one to four weeks during which an Agile team completes a planned set of work.