Toolkit exercise: Agile Manifesto - The Values

This is the third post in a series of ten blog posts about the exercises in the Toolkit for Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters. All exercises the blog posts in this series are about, are available in our free promo version of the book .

Agile Manifesto – The Values seems like a basic exercise at the outset. And it is. Meaning, the exercise itself is not complex. However, whether it is valuable to a team you do this exercise with depends on two things: a) your understanding and knowledge of the values, and b) the amount of Agile experience a team has. Do not be fooled into thinking this cannot be valuable for very experienced teams. On the contrary, I think this is more valuable for more experienced teams, than it is for beginning teams.

When teams get introduced to the manifesto, they gain a basic understanding of it. Left over right, right is still valuable, we prefer the left. They will hopefully start using and slowly living these values. Without questions, they will still run into many situations where they naturally pick the right side over the left side. All of that is part of the natural process of getting used to the values. It's after they've run into the wall, so to speak, that they will be able to gain a deeper understanding of the values. And once they have you should run it again after a while, to capitalize on the amount of lessons learned and the depth of the insight they gain. Because to continuously improve, you have to continuously reflect. Inspect and adapt.

As I said before, the exercise is simple enough to run. I've done this with teams that were starting, I do it in most training classes I teach, and I use it at meetups. Not because it's so simple, but because of the way the exercise is ran. You start by "cutting up" the Agile Manifesto and either making 8 (virtual) stickies for the values, or put each word on a separate sticky to make it a little trickier. Next, you let the group put it back together. Doesn't matter whether they know the manifesto or not. If they've never heard of it, you'll get fantastic thoughts and insights on why they put it together the way they did. If they do know it (or say so…), you get to ask deeper questions and get to explore experiences they have with a specific value.

Groups who are new to the manifesto tend to mix up the words if the values are not split up into eight cards. You may want to choose to stick to the original terms to not have to correct them twice. This also makes the process a bit easier for them, and could maximize learnings. After all, this exercise it about getting a(n) (deeper) understanding of the values of the Agile Manifesto, not "guess the right combination of words".

Groups that know the manifesto, or have lots of experience, tend to be done quickly. Be on the lookout for this. If you have a mixed audience, make sure each team gets enough time to do the exercise their way, without getting influenced by other groups. With mixed groups, ask the more experienced teams that do this exercise to also put the values in the right order. That usually adds an additional challenge. Even if they would instinctively put them in the right order, the question will make them think about it twice. Again, maximize learnings.

Once all the manifestos are ready, you discuss. Ask 'why' a lot at this point, because it's people's reasoning that is more important than getting the values right. The latter is easy to fix, the former is what needs most attention. If people do not seem to understand, share examples and war stories.

Also focus on the order of the values. They are in a specific order for a reason. If you don't focus on Individuals and Interactions, it is trickier to collaborate on Working Software, which makes it harder to do Customer Collaboration, which will reduce your ability to Respond(ing) to Change. Make sure people understand this, so when they start using it they have a sense of what to focus on first.

Once done, end up with one final and correct copy of the manifesto that everyone can snap pictures of. Additionally, place copies of the manifesto near where people work, so they see it regularly. You can even take that up a notch. One organization I've visited in New York actually had copies of the manifesto in the restrooms. And one of my former employers created a Delft Blue Tile Wall with the values of the manifesto (about 10x10 feet) so everyone sees it all the time.

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