This is the 1st principle of the Agile Manifesto from the year 2001 that you can find on http://agilemanifesto.org/
Figure: First principle of the Agile Manifesto from 2001
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Although I couldn’t agree with this more, I think in the last years this changed a bit.
Especially with the introduction of the “Lean Startup” movement
Figure: First principle of the Agile Manifesto 2.0
Lets call this the “Agile Manifesto 2.0”
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After talking to Jurgen Appelo and reading his blog post about “The purpose of a business is NOT customer values” I came up with the “1st principle of the Agile Manifesto 3.0”.
Figure: First principle of the Agile Manifesto 3.0
Jurgen calls BS on “delight the customer” and is keen on satisfying everyone involved: stockholders, employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment,. ..
It might be hard to satisfy everyone with valuable software, but having that as goal is great.
Note: If I skip the “delight the customer” step I couldn’t come up with 3.0
and I really wanted to align this with the “Management 3.0” naming of Jurgen. --> Which I like!
BTW: Another way to look at it might be:
- In Agile 1.0 we build something and learn if the customer likes it or not as quickly as possible
- In Agile 2.0 we try to learn about the customer and measure what delights him in order to know what to build
- In Agile 3.0 we look at the bigger picture of all parties involved
What do you think? Brain fart? Helpful to think about your business?
4 comments:
Great idea to look beyond the original agile manifesto.
But "satisfy everyone" to me sounds like a symptom of a psychic disorder. Lots of people are being treated because they´re constantly trying to satisfy everyone.
Such a lofty goal might be ethically commendable - but it cannot be reached and thus inevitably leads to deep frustration.
Software development is an organizational unit in need to feel it makes a difference; it´s looking for meaning, because it´s constituted by people looking for meaning. Satisfying someone sure gives meaning.
On the other hand, though, to stay "functional" and be able to satisfy in a sustainable way resources need to be managed. That means resources need to be withheld from someone from time to time. Which surely dissastisfies this person.
In addition satisfaction means different things to different people and might even be in contradiction. Satisfaction of everyone therefore is impossible.
Bottom line: No, I don´t agree with your Agility 3.0 statement.
Hi Ralf
Interesting thinking approach and interesting conclusion:
>>to stay "functional" and be able to satisfy in a sustainable way resources need to be managed.
If you talk about resources here, what do you mean?
>>That means resources need to be withheld from someone from time to time. Which surely dissastisfies this person.
Not sure what you mean, but "withholding resources from someone" means knowing their expectations of that resource.
Delighting someone = raising their expectation.
>>In addition satisfaction means different things to different people and might even be in contradiction.
Sure.
>>Satisfaction of everyone therefore is impossible.
I am not able to follow your conclusion. Can you expand this a little bit?
Have you seen an organization where everyone is satisfied?
Resources are time, money, attention...
Here´s a scenario: Stakeholder A wants your attention now, stakeholder B wants your attention now. How do you satisfy both? You cannot. It´s a conflict. At least not without negotiation.
Negotiation might lead to changes in what A and B want. So after some negotiation A might agree to get your attention tomorrow. You give your attention to B today and to A tomorrow. All parties satisfied.
Sounds great. But additional effort needed to be invested into negotiation. This cannot be done indefinitely. You need to cap the resources going into negotiation, otherwise you might end up negotiating all the time.
But if you cap negotiation then you can´t assume all conflicts to get resolved. And that means, you cannot reliably satisfy everyone.
Delighting someone is great. Go for it. But the delight of someone might not be the delight of someone else. Ask you spouse if she´s delighted all the time when you delight your customers :-) Or the other way around. A customer might agree with you going on a vacation because you want to delight your spouse - but he´s not necessarily delighted by the delay that causes in working with you.
"Satisfy everyone" as highest priority is not a sustainably motto, I´d say. All the people I know who tried this burned themselves out or even died early. The same will happen to an organization.
You know what bothers me most with such slogans? They are asymmetric. It´s a modern way of slavery. And as with social media it´s self inflicted.
20 years ago it was all war. Business was constant fight. Today it´ seems to be constant submission. "Satisfy everyone" is submission of maybe a subtle form.
Much, much more important than "constant satisfaction" I find trust, reliability, responsibility, good will, honesty, partnership.
>> Here´s a scenario: Stakeholder A wants your attention now, stakeholder B wants your attention now.
Can you solve the root cause that both stakeholders need attention at the same time.
>> Delighting someone is great. Go for it. But the delight of someone might not be the delight of someone else.
Good point!!
I think it is the balance.
And that is the reason I think why Jurgen talked about "satisfying" and not "delighting".
To me satisfying someone is easier to achieve than delighting him/her.
>> You know what bothers me most with such slogans? They are asymmetric. It´s a modern way of slavery.
I am not sure what you mean, but I see "Satisfy everyone" as a goal, which you strive for.
>> Much, much more important than "constant satisfaction" I find trust, reliability, responsibility, good will, honesty, partnership.
+1
Maybe that is all you need to satisfy everyone ;-)
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