Cow Consulting

I was recently reminded of the vast commercialisation of Agile that is burgeoning amongst us. At a recent keynote one of the first lines spoken sent a shiver down my spine. Quite useful actually as the room was very hot

“Agile is not about software. It’s about change.”

All of the founders and legends and most of the good people I have met, who truly believed and understood what Agile was about, can be found lurking as signatories. Although that’s not to say all signatories are everything to all men, it does generally show they have their heart in it – not just their wallet. I remember the moment I signed and the commitment I felt at the time – like joining a secret club.

For those of you interested or confused here is the Agile Manifesto once more..

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Software is the foundation of Agile Software Development – to use the full title. I will keep my opinons on how software usually results in business change and how Agile often results in organisational change for a later date.

In the meantime I recommend you try looking up YOUR Agile consultant or consultancy to see if they have signed yet……

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Forgotten Scrum Values

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

Niels Bohr

Openness is synonymous with transparency, and this requires candid and frank communication. The most important word in the previous sentence is communication – if this isn’t happening then openness is simply impossible. This can be a challenging value to hold dear and is particularly difficult to achieve if respect and courage are not yet instilled, and even more difficult it trust is yet to be established – this is probably why Commitment is the first value! Anyone affected by conversations and decisions must be made aware as soon as possible – and without disrupting their current focus. Openness needs to be considered at the highest levels of the organisation. Consider distributed, multiple teams facing a common impediment. There is little opportunity for passive communication and it’s probably something that is not within a single team’s control – in this situation openness becomes essential to everyone. The teams need to be fully aware of the progress being made with such issues in order to plan effectively. Openness in this situation can be as simple as a Big Visible Chart of what actions are in progress and by whom – somewhere everyone can see and pull the information as suits.Openness is certainly not about everything being communicated to everyone, in fact we strive to protect our teams from some of the more frank conversations that may take place. Simply put we aim to make sure everyone who needs to be involved actually is.

Openness comes into play again in relation to being honest and leaving our biases behind, being ready to explore new ideas, whether your own or others. This flavour of openness is particularly useful to remember in games, planning and reviews. Honesty is infectious, when a person is open about failures it encourages everyone around them to be comfortable sharing their knowledge and mistakes too. Just a little openness offered to others can, and often will, spark innovation and creativity in others, leading to better software, higher quality and high performing teams.

More on Respect and Courage to come…

Why I Fell in Love With Scrum

Have You Signed The Agile Manifesto Yet?

Scrum Values and The Duality of Openness

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