FOLLOW THE VALUES – EVERYTHING ELSE FALLS IN PLACE

I gave a talk about "Follow the Values" at Scrum Gathering Vienna, Oct 30, 2019. The following is a summary of what I presented.

We always hear people talking about Values and Principles, but what does it mean to live them. 

“Can a Waterfall Project be successful? Sure, if it is done in an agile way.” When I made that statement, I heard some giggles and saw some surprised faces. 

I took them back to the year 2000 when I started working as a Software Engineer and was part of a team of 5 people, a Team Lead and a Project Manager. The Project was run as a Waterfall Project with lots of processes and documentation. We, as a team did all the documentation and followed the processes. Nevertheless, we used to start coding before we finished designing, we used to start testing before we finished coding, or rather we did testing along with the coding. We delivered small packages of Software to Quality Testing so that we can fix the defects sooner. There was no phased approach. We did everything iteratively. Sure! we did not have the Customer Feedback from day 1 but that was not something we, as software engineers, could influence. However, the Software worked and a highly critical Project (with high penalties for late delivery) was successful. We did this project in an agile way to a large extent without even knowing the word “Agile”. The only “agile” that we knew was the word in the dictionary meaning “nimble” and “flexible”. 

My First “Agile Project” was not using “Scrum” or “XP” or “Kanban”. It was a collaboration-based work, that led to improved quality software, within an environment highly resistant to Scrum or Agile.

My second Project was using Scrum; however, I could not use any of Scrum Practices and had to define my own processes to co-ordinate three different sites across the globe and bring collaboration and visibility to all the sides of the world.

All these days, I thought Agile and Scrum were the set of practices and processes that one needs to follow to develop a Product and one needs to learn those practices to “be agile”.

Then, one fine day, in a very specific moment, while having a discussion with my manager (a Servant Leader and my Mentor), I had a revelation that there was something much stronger to being agile than a collection of these practices. I felt that there was something fundamentally wrong in my existing beliefs and that there was something very important that I was missing in knowing and living "agile". 

These were the "Agile Values" and it wasn't about learning them, it was about living them. As a further eye-opener, I found that I was already living these but totally unaware of the power they carried and the way they always helped me to be successful.

This was the Turning Point in my Life. 

I still try my best to live these values. They help me to make hard calls and help those who are suffering because of the abusive work environment. I help them to find their way following these Values even in a highly autocratic and resistant environment. When they do that, everything else “Falls in Place” for them.

On my way, I also, found that it was very critical to have formal education as a good educator helps you to explore all the hidden pathways in your brain which you, otherwise, won't even know, existed. 

Along with education, I met the people going in the same direction. This is the Agile Community. I lacked it in the beginning, and it was frustrating to be the "lone nut" in the whole organization, where people think you are crazy, the only one carrying the flag of agile in the crowd of traditional mindset. Being and sharing with people having similar Values, makes life much more rewarding. 

I'm still on the path of relentless improvement and every day brings new learning for me.

Thanks!