Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
Welcome to this 4-part series where Nader Talai walks through each of the agile values articulated in the Agile Manifesto. This week, Nader explains what ‘individuals and interactions OVER processes and tools’ means in the context of Agile and product development.
One of the things that you need to keep in mind when exploring the agile values is that the element on the left ‘individuals and interactions’ is not the singular focus, nor does it mean that the element on the right ‘processes and tools’ doesn’t matter.
It means that there is a clear focus on the first element, whilst the second element needs to support the first element. So, processes and tools are incredibly important, but they must support the people and interactions they have, rather than have people adapt to the processes and tools.
Traditional Project Management
In traditional project management, an organization will design or select a set of processes and insist that people follow those processes to the letter, regardless of whether it helps them achieve their goals or not.
They will also acquire a set of tools, make them mandatory in alignment with the processes selected, and people must use those tools in the prescribed manner regardless of whether they make the team more effective and efficient or not.
You could work in an environment where everything in place ensures that the team fails. The tools, the processes, the organizational policies. Everything is designed with ‘control-and-command’ in mind rather than helping the team achieve business agility.
This is what agile is trying to combat.
Agile Product Development.
In agile, our focus lies in creating products and features that truly delight customers, in a way that captures and creates value for the organization and the teams who serve her.
The idea is to employ processes and tools that enable business agility.
We want the team to be able to adapt and respond to changing customer needs, competitor disruption in the markets they serve, and any economic, legislative, or socio-economic disruption.
We want them to do so quickly, effectively, and with minimal cost outlay to support that pivot.
If we focus on individuals and the interactions they have as a primary value, we are then able to design and invest in the tools that enable those valuable interactions. We are able to design and select processes that enable the team to develop a hypothesis, run a cheap and quick experiment to validate or disprove that hypothesis, and adapt based on the data and feedback they gather.
Empirical Process Control or Empiricism.
In a complicated environment, the tool or process can get the job done. The individual is there to ensure that gets done and intervenes where necessary, but ultimately it is the tool or process that ensures a valuable outcome is delivered.
Think manufacturing. Think logistics. Think civil engineering.
In a complex environment, the tool can’t get the job done. It is the individual and their creative, collaborative interactions with others that get the job done.
The tools and processes simply enable that outcome.
So, we need to focus on those individuals and the interactions they have to ensure that we are creating value for both the customer as well as the organization. Tools and processes are valuable and appropriate, but only in the context of supporting or enabling individuals and teams.
So, in summary, this is why this Agile value is so important and why successful organizations have shifted their attention from processes and tools to individuals and interactions.
About Value Glide
Value Glide are a SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) consultancy, coaching practice, and training specialist who work with organizations to align business objectives with customer needs and wants.
As deeply experienced agile coaches and practitioners, our team are invested in continuous learning through each client engagement and use the data and evidence we gather from each implementation to inform our training, coaching, and consulting services.
In a nutshell, empirical process control or empiricism.
If you are thinking of adopting agile within your organization and have identified SAFe as a great agile framework to adopt, implement and improve your business agility, visit our SAFe Quickstart ART Launch program page or view our SAFe Consulting Services page.
If you have identified a need for an agile coach and SAFe coach to help your organization adopt and implement SAFe, visit our SAFe Coaching Services page.
If you want to know more about SAFe and how to lead SAFe, visit our SAFE Training page for a host of options, from Leading SAFe to a SAFe Release Train Engineer course.
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