To succeed in an Agile project, the 4 values ​​and 12 principles must be taken into account in the project together. Nevertheless, principle 4 is for me the pivotal article which governs the organization of the project and allows the establishment of the conditions for success. Working together is the unifying element of a successful co-construction.

Discover principle 4, according to 3 focus: individual (Mago), team (Extensio), organization (Intensio)

Working together

Principle 4- Users or their representatives as well as operational (developers) must work together daily throughout the project.

In Agile, idea confrontation and co-construction are encouraged. All stakeholders must cooperate to build the service, application or product together. The parties are the multidisciplinary team comprising the key skills needed to achieve and the client.

The main driving force of the team is to do it together by developing their power of action. The team is empowered to act when it receives help to answer its questions and feels empowered to act:

The help expected by the team is often provided by an external coach. If the latter leaves too early, before a transfer of confidence in the team has taken place with a sponsor, or mentor in the company. The team will feel weakened.

To succeed in an Agile project, the 4 values ​​and 12 principles must be taken into account in the project. Nevertheless, Principle 4 is for me the pivotal article that governs the organization of the project and allows the establishment of conditions of success.

The right to wander

Imagine, as a customer, let’s say I want a yacht to be built. I tell my supplier-team “build me a boat” and I hope it will be done.

The team builds a canoe. Error or opportunity?

The canoe, is a real opportunity to identify the real needs of the customer.

This allows the team to work together and prepare the project breakdown to deliver value to each sprint period to their client. The first delivery is an adjustment delivery.

The aim is to identify as closely as possible the uses and the context, the different parts of the structure to be built. Identify materials, set up links and organize daily work, but also, find out:

What is the reason my client drives me to a bespoke boat rather than a standard on the shelf? What does he want to see again, bring or experiment … What is he dreaming of?

As a customer, I must give the necessary direction to deliver the product I am looking for, and at all times be available to the yacht’s construction team, to guide them as close to my expectations as possible

This constant communication not only helps the team to have a clear vision of what needs to be done, but also helps to avoid unnecessary work and avoid mistakes early on.

Discover after a day that the team builds a canoe, where I imagine
a yacht. It’s a single day of work lost. It is easy to re-orient the team and find together the first useful prototype based on the most expensive elements to validate, or the specificities that I wish to bring.

This preliminary work allows in the terminology Scrum to define the objective of Sprint – Sprint Goal, Sprint backlog and to decide the pace of events during which teams and customers will validate the deliveries produced.

In a future article on “In the beginning was the verb or the power of intention”, I will differentiate the strategic backlog and the execution backlog.

Here, what is important is to lay the foundations of a clear and continuous communication between the parties is essential to enable continuous product delivery – see the principles of division of the Product Backlog.

Plan well the construction time of your pond or backlog. These are privileged moments customers-operational team needed to adjust the forecast deliveries as the intention. It is this moment that will then allow change to be welcomed – Principle 2, on a sound basis. The agreement on the backlog and on the reception criteria makes it possible to ensure a continuous validation of the deliveries between the customer and the different stakeholders.

On a sprint of 4 weeks, 1 day must be devoted to the constitution of the backlog. The strategic pool will precede the sprint and illustrate in terms of epic, or theme, the scenarios to be covered by the operational throughout the project.

Focus Intensio- from a team point of view what does”working together daily throughout the project” mean?

Underlying this principle 4 “Working together daily” requires each individual to express themselves freely and to develop listening to others.

The mutual respect obtained allows the team to develop its ability to deliver, to release its creativity and sense of responsibility. within the team everyone is recognized for who he is, for all his talents.

This is how the team will build the complementarity necessary for the efficient realization of a specific project.

As the team develops a sense of security, awareness of its possibilities, skills, capabilities, delivery and continuous improvement becomes the guarantee of team performance.

It is in this power of action that the bases for a successful transformation are to be found, which is what makes it possible to say that Agility develops well-being and pleasure at work.

Focus Extensio- from a managerial point of view?

Underlying this principle 4 “Working together daily”, there are at least 2 fundamental points that management in large organizations must be aware of.

the team must be multidisciplinary and get along. Bringing together a team of diverse profiles requires an investment of time in order to get them to understand each other and to add their potential. Federating a team is key in Agile projects where the team is committed to doing and delivering value in a limited time. This is a complementary profile that will have the basis on all a different opinion. This opinion is the wealth of the group but to add the opinions in the solution to the client requires to develop his listening and to have management based on the CIDs. This CIDs activates the four levers of transformation that are: Courage, Intuition, Challenge, and Common Sense, in the heart of the team.

Management must also agree to no longer pre-empt individuals based on the multiple needs of the function of an organization-administration. We are here at the heart of principle 8 where management is the guarantor of a sustainable pace. The team must be able to commit without being dependent on an organization independent of that of the team. It must be without pressure to account beyond demonstrating the added value delivered at the pace decided by the stakeholders (sprints). We are here on a real paradigm shift for our management lead to postponement and control.

Focus Mago- from an individual point of view?

I refer here again to the four levers of the success of your transformation, where the CIDs conveys a collective commitment or “all the emotional intelligence of CIDs will make compatible the ideas of each, reduce conflict by bringing into the collective context, the improvements that everyone wants to see in. It will make possible the addition of all ideas so that the trio, the sum of all ideas, can grow and develop. “

The individual will be able to express himself and display all his talents rather than play the role that is traditionally attributed to him in his “job description”.

Special focus on Distributed teams

The manifesto encourages daily work and face-to-face exchanges. So to succeed on Agile transformation, big companies were bringing together multidisciplinary.

However, Principle 4 and its corollary Principle 6 can be effective as long as continuous attention is paid to the individual, in a daily direct exchange (email, chat and others are to be avoided to avoid confusion, and loss of contact).

IObeyas large rooms to collecte data and demonstrations are allowing to maintain dynamic exchanges and making animation.

The construction of a dynamic daily exchange in remote is key. The animation of a large room in remote requires greater involvement of the key players in the projects. Thus creating ambassadors and facilitators who guarantee the continuity of an active community. This role, the keystone is quite invisible to others.

With Agile & Scrum, the role becomes a job! Scrum will highlight this role by assigning a rotating role in the team, named Scrum Master.

This article was conceived and written by Dominique Popiolek, leader and professional coach.