Swapping Values in Agile Manifesto
I have been wondering about Agile recently. Specifically, how do we know we are doing Agile and not just “sprint based waterfall”?
The Waterfall vs Agile helped me think about this in a different way. Such as, what are the basic tenets of waterfall and Agile. How do they differ in terms of time, resources, and scope.
Scope is one the eludes me - I have caught myself forcing scope onto team members in their approach to a solution. Effectively, I was defining scope AND time - without giving additional resources!
I was doing the thing I did not want done to me!
I got a chance to meet a former busines transformation consultant, AH, and asked him:
What are some basic “tenets of agile”? How do they compare to waterfall? I suspect we are just doing “sprint based waterfall” because of the fluidity of agile and the ease everyone falls back into waterfall.
His answer:
Take the values of the agile manifest and swap the left and right hand terms around? ;-)
You can tell this person is a great consultant because he answered my question with a question, the answer is shorter than the original question(s), and he’s giving me a wink at the end of the answer.
Pop quiz - which of the below is the actual Agile Manifesto values? Why? and most importantly - which ones are you and your team following?
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
OR
- Processes and tools over individuals and interactions
- Comprehensive documentation over working software
- Contract negotiation over customer collaboration
- Following a plan over responding to change
Answer at: Agile Manifesto