Artifacts

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Social Contract

SOCIAL
CONTRACT

Overview
A social contract is a working agreement between the members of the
Talent Acquisition Scrum Team that captures the expectations they
have for each other. The social contract contains a set of values,
behaviors and social norms the team aspires to uphold and
consolidates everyone’s understanding of how they will behave and
interact. The social contract may differ from team to team, project to
project. The Talent Acquisition Scrum Master is the steward of the
social contract and updates it as it evolves.

© 2018 IBM Corporation AgileTA IBM Confidential

 Steps
How do we do this?
• The Talent Acquisition Scrum Master facilitates a dialogue that
helps ensure all perspectives are heard.
• Ask lots of questions to get people going: What do we value?
What’s important? What would make this team powerful? Think
about negative experiences you have had on projects that the
team can avoid.
• Document what you can count on from one another:
1. availability/response times
2. definition of done
3. participation in AgileTA rituals (refinement, sprint planning,
sprint kickoff, daily standup, retrospective, showcase)
4. utilization of the AgileTA tools (Kanban board, Slack, Mural,
etc.)
• Allow the participants to voice their feelings.

Value
• It contributes to a safe working environment by giving people the
power to have conversations about behaviors considered
inappropriate.
• It allows the team members to know what the other members of
the team expect from them.
• It helps identify dysfunctional behaviors that can be addressed
quickly to mitigate long term damage.
• Anyone can/should ‘enforce’ the contract by pointing out
deviations.

Hints & Tips

Q. Does it change over time?
Most certainly, change it as required – it’s an
agreement, and should be reviewed regularly,
especially as teams are conducting retrospectives
(see Retrospective summary).

Q. How do we share it?

The Talent Acquisition Scrum Master can post the
social contract on Mural.