Transparency is the Key
Following a product vision, creating a safe environment, being a high-performing team, or increasing organizational agility. These are some of the main concepts of agility and we’re trying to improve these over time. Sometimes it might be easy for us to lose our way for continuous improvement. Most of the time, we are trying to use different techniques and spending our effort on minor improvements without thinking about the root cause of the current situation. At these times, all we have to do is take a deep breath and go back to things that we learned from the scrum guide. The answer is simple. Transparency is the key to every single agile improvement.
What is transparency?
Transparency is the first pillar of Scrum. Let’s look at what the scrum guide says about it.
[*]Significant aspects of the process must be visible to those responsible for the outcome. Transparency requires those aspects be defined by a common standard so observers share a common understanding of what is being seen.
One of the scrum values which is called “Openness” is related to transparency too.
[**]The empiricism of Scrum requires transparency, openness, and honesty. The player-inspectors want to check on the current situation in order to make sensible adaptations.
So transparency is one of the core values of Agile and also it is critical to the success of organizations and teams adopting Agile.
Why is it so important?
When we look at the traditional old way of working, transparency is still important but it is difficult to create or increase it. Let’s look at the agile manifesto and think about the items on the right side:
[***]Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
Which items are more valuable for increasing transparency in an environment? I think the answer is still the same. [***] while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more
It is impossible to achieve the purpose of the agile way without transparency. Everything starts with it. You need to increase it continuously. Individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, responding to change must be transparent. Let’s take a bit of deep dive into it.
How can we promote it?
We have to create transparency at each level of the organization. Only then it will be easier to increase it at the team level.
There should be an organizational culture that gives value to transparency. Upper management and leaders can support it by being an example. When people experience that then they can change their behaviours and feed the culture. As a practice, an agreement can be made at the organizational level by involving all people. It can be the definition of our values and how we work and act. We call it a manifesto. It is very important to create it with the participation of all teams, then they can feel the responsibility and motivation of the manifesto. I wanted to share five items from DFDS Development Center Istanbul manifesto:
- We prefer to have regular events to share information instead of gossip. Information we accept as truth.
- We understand the value of giving feedback on time for the improvement of the team and us.
- We understand that indirect communication creates time loss and miscommunication.
- We prefer to talk instead of writing and waiting.
- We know the importance of fast feedback from customers for product quality.
As you see, the purpose of these items is to increase transparency which helps to create trust among the team and team members. If there is a trustworthy environment, team members start not to fear openness.
Understanding the value behind transparency is important. It is meaningless to hide the current situation from someone. Be open to your teammates about your feelings, thoughts and give feedback to them. Be open about your product, strategy, roadmap, product increment, or metrics; only then you can get valuable feedback from your stakeholders. Be open to your teammates during scrum rituals about your progress and impediments you encounter; ask help from them if you need it. Just be open and try to increase transparency for everything; by this way, you will have a chance to inspect the current situation and adapt it, otherwise you get lost in the dark and only make wrong assumptions.
[*] Scrum Guide — Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland
[**] The Scrum Values — Gunther Verheyen
[***] Manifesto for Agile Software Development
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