12 Days of Agile - Principle #1

The number one tenet of Agile is that our work should always focus on providing value to the customer. Without our customers, nothing else matters. “Finite-minded” leaders and companies - according to Simon Sinek - might focus solely on goals such as maximizing profits, shareholder value, or revenue growth. However, Agile focuses on the customer and value. If you take care of your customers first the profits and market position follow.

How do we satisfy or, better yet, delight or customers? We deliver valuable software. We don’t deliver the software we want to develop, but what the customer values. Those values are expressed through their prioritization of features in the backlog. We have to overcome our urge to determine the value for the customer and, instead, listen to what they wish to accomplish.

We also seek to deliver early and continuously. Delivering early gives your customer the opportunity to provide feedback on what you've developed while delivering continuously provides a steady stream of value.

This differs from the waterfall approach where a dev team may take a full set of requirements, disappear for 6 months, then, finally, have a “grand reveal” of what they’ve built. In that situation, it's less likely that you've met the customer's needs. You may have also burned valuable time your customer had in establishing a market advantage. Worse yet, the market may have changed so drastically that the requirements you started with are no longer valid. #12DaysOfAgile #Scrum #Agile #AgileManifesto