The 12 Days of Agile Principles! Principle #4
Inspired by The 12 Days of Christmas we’re exploring the principles behind the Agile Manifesto. Originally defined in 2001, The Principles of the Agile Manifesto are still highly relevant to Agile approaches today. So like an advent calendar of Agility, we're unwrapping one principle each day for the 12 working days - Monday to Friday, leading up to Xmas. By the time we conclude we should all be in the festive spirit!
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Welcome to DAY 4 of ‘The 12 Days of Agile Principles’ where we get friendly…
PRINCIPLE #4
Business people & developers must work together daily throughout the project
If you’re tuning in to these festive blogs it’s likely you’ve already seen the benefit of working together daily in cross functional teams and the enhanced creativity that is born of diversity in team make-up and mindset. This principle only refers to business people and developers, which shows that it was 2001 and that the mere concept of collaborating across the technology and business divide was novel, but you get the idea. It captures the essence of close collaboration, i.e we don't just see you at meetings and workshops, we are working together every day, and building our stuff as one team.
Happily we’ve moved on to include all roles involved in bringing products to market and most recently I observe that many technology teams are now embedding inside their business teams and ceasing to identify primarily as ‘IT’. We see this in companies that have decided to 'scale' their Agile approach to whole areas that are aligned to a common mission, incorporating the technical delivery of value and those people into the model. This in particular makes me happy because functional silos are a drag.
What’s also more recent and a topic I hope to be speaking about at conference near you soon, is, the increasingly fluid nature of our roles inside organisations and teams, and how that will shape the future of how we work, more to come on that soon!
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Continue on to Agile Principle #5 or join the conversation at @TheRebootCo.
#12daysofAgilePrinciples