THE AGILE MANIFESTO – PRINCIPLE #5

In February 2001, the #Agile ‘Software Development’ Manifesto, a set of values and the “12 principles of Agile Software” was born. I have provided a brief explanation of each of the agile principles here.

This article will discuss Principle #5: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done. I break down the principle to help you fully understand its intent and how you and your organization can best implement it. As it is a key principle to doing Agile well, we should look to it and apply and deviations to our processes against it.

Build projects around motivated individuals. 

Motivation comes in many forms. Connecting the appropriate personnel with each project is essential to maximizing the possibility of success and profitability. While there may be many people within your organization that have a specific skillset to accomplish a given task, it is always far better to select those who want to be a part of a given project.

Building projects around motivated individuals who get excited about the opportunity to be a part of something much bigger than themselves, and/or who want to build upon their current skillsets is certainly a recipe for success. Without motivated individuals who genuinely want to see the project succeed, organizations may be sacrificing the ultimate drive that pushes projects to completion when inevitable challenges impede their realization.

Give them the environment and support they need…

Once you have discovered which motivated individuals will make up the agile teams, you will then need to provide them a supportive environment that compliments, not impedes, their ability to deliver. This starts with providing them some protection, in most cases in the form of a Scrum Master (SM) and Product Owner (PO).

The PO is a customer facing role that acts as a proxy between your businesspeople (PMs) and the team. They are there to help define the work and answer questions regarding requirements coming from the team. POs are also there to help manage expectations and scope. When outside influences change requirements frequently, as can be the case, the PO protects the team by negotiating necessary changes with current commitments. After all, just because someone wants more of something does not mean our personnel have more time to create it. If we bring new scope in, something more than likely needs to fall out, or our timeline will be missed.

We also want to encourage having a Scrum Master on the team that can focus on coaching the team around #Agile practices and principles, resolve impediments that are blocking the delivery flow, and to moderate, communicate, and provide transparency into the team’s success. SM’s also act to protect the team from outside influences from those who may want to task our team, i.e., management. By moderating the scrum ceremonies and managing the flow of information into and out of the team they enable the team to maintain focus. They can work with management to schedule meetings when it will least impact deliverables and help resolve concerns from the team regarding tasks that have little to nothing to do with their commitments but may still be necessary. It is an important support role that can truly impact the morale and motivation within the team.

Once the Agile team is established and you have a #ScrumMaster and #ProductOwner in place, we also need to educate our leadership. It is important for all management and leadership to understand the role of an agile leader, most commonly as a servant leader. Leadership needs to understand their responsibilities within an agile environment and those things they do that may enable or impede their teams flow of delivery. We must help them understand the impacts of each of their decisions and what they can do to help improve their team’s performance.

Additionally, we must ensure that the infrastructure and tools are in place that support the team’s development. This includes the availability and access to those tools and environments for every team member to encourage flow and cross functionality and training. This also includes building stable environments and processes that do not impede progress.

…and trust them to get the job done. 

Trust is something that can either enable or disable your team.

In an agile environment, teams are enabled to organize themselves around the value they plan to deliver. Teams, based on the priorities of the business, plan their work based on their skillsets, capacity, and their own expectations. In doing so, they have greater confidence in their plans. In doing so, they are more likely to predictably deliver.

When leadership trusts agile teams to autonomously plan and deliver, the team(s) can hold themselves accountable to the commitments they make together. As teams meet their commitments and become predictable, more trust is built. When teams are challenged with their delivery, they can retrospect and resolve challenges internally. This self-management, when done effectively, establishes internal trust that creates an environment of honesty and self-reflection.

It is important for leadership to step back from traditional management practices when adopting agile. To be effective, teams need the autonomy to make and learn from their mistakes. Teams need leaders in place who trust them to do the job right and who will support their growth. When leaders trust teams to get the job done, great things will happen.

Summary

Autonomy. Self-organization. Self-management. Allow those who are eager to do the work to do it. Build an organizational culture that motivates individuals and where people want to work. Provide an environment that is fun and exciting to work in, provides the necessary tools and support needed to thrive, and then get out of their way. Decentralize decisions down to the lowest level so that the organization does not build in processes, procedures, and policies that will impede their progress. When we do this, amazing things will happen, and fast.