Agile Values
Why they are bigger than product development
I realized the main reason why I am passionate about agile. Sure, I love technology and good software products, but that’s not the main reason.
The main reason is the values and concepts that agile espouses.
Agile doesn’t work just because you have a ScrumMaster, Product Owner, and development team. It doesn’t work just because you have ceremonies and artifacts. It doesn’t work just because of playing planning poker games.
The values are what make agile work.
The values can be easily found in the agile manifesto, including individuals and interactions over processes and tools as well as customer collaboration over contract negotiation. However, let’s take this a step further and look at values and concepts that are a result of the foundation set by the manifesto.
- Servant Leadership
The entire concept of servant leadership encapsulates the new management paradigm. There is an inverse relationship between the amount of control a manager exercises and the amount of motivation his/her employee has to do the job to the best of his/her ability. Therefore, instead of the command-and-control management paradigm, the new one suggests the manager be of service to the employee. Or for example, in agile’s case, the ScrumMaster is of service to the team.
Give your employees the information, tools, and assistance they need to get the job done, and then get out of their way and let them do it. That doesn’t mean don’t hold them accountable. This approach will give them the self-motivation they need to get the job done to the best of their ability.
2. Stable velocity, sustainable pace
Many of us have the “more, better, faster” mentality. We expect it from ourselves, our gadgets, and our teams. We want to increase speed, productivity, and every other metric that comes to mind. As humans, we eventually hit a wall and can become exhausted and burned out pursuing becoming faster and faster.
The executive management team expecting agile teams to perpetually increase their velocity is the wrong approach to take due to the risk of exhaustion and burnout. In business, managers appreciate predictability, right? Predictability is reassuring to them, their bosses, the board, and the owners/shareholders.
You are more likely to achieve predictability if you have a stable velocity.
If the speed at which your team works and completes projects, product iterations, etc. is stable, then it becomes predictable.
With the stability comes sustainability. Theoretically, if you have a stable velocity for one iteration after another, then you should be able to sustain working at that pace indefinitely. In practice, we know that things happen and life gets in the way of maintaining anything indefinitely. However, sustainability does not mean perfection forever, and the sustainable pace is much more achievable with a stable velocity and not a “more, better, faster” attitude.
3. Inspect and adapt
We should take a closer look at what we’re doing as frequently as possible so we can figure out how to do what we’re doing better and then adapt to make it happen. This can be done during retrospectives, postmortems, whatever you want to call them. Though really, you can do them anytime you want.
It never hurts to stop, think, take a look, and then see how you can improve what you’re doing or fix something that’s broken.
4. Self-managed teams
The entire concept of a self-managed team is pretty incredible. Self-managed teams that are done well increase accountability among team members. They hold each other accountable and are therefore self-motivated to get the job done. No waiting around for the boss to give you instructions on what to do. No letting the boss ultimately take the fall for mistakes. Everything is on you and your teammates, so the motivation to work with them and do the best job you can increases.
The moral of the story
Applying agile values will make you better. Period. It will make you better at what you do personally and professionally. Nobody’s perfect; not you or even the agile values and concepts. However, it is worthwhile to pursue continuous self-improvement, and agile values and concepts are a great place to start.
