As we near the 20th birthday of the Agile Manifesto its amazing to see how the core principles are as relevant today as ever before. That being said, the world has changed a lot in the last 20 years — and time may have exposed a few cracks.

In an effort to remain relevant in an ever-evolving workplace, and avoid any unintended misunderstandings, it may be time to revisit a couple of the principles. After all, one of the most important concepts of being agile is being open and adapting to change.

The two principles in question are:

1. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
2. Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Face-to-Face No longer Required

Principle in Question: The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

The last decade has brought forth a major emergence of remote work, with software development companies leading the charge. Over this time, we’ve seen roughly 160% increase in remote work, and nearly 50% of all companies offer some form of remote work.

Collaboration software has reached a point where many interactions are enhanced and improved by meeting virtually. Tools such as Slack, Teams, and Zoom, have become so pervasive that it’s no longer shocking to see a fully co-located team have important meetings virtually so they can take advantage of features such as video calls, recording, and sharing digital whiteboards.

While conversation being the best form of interaction still remains true, the face-to-face aspect does not necessarily remain relevant. For example, teams can now bring a user into a video call, carry out a virtual User Story Mapping session, record it, and have a digital version of their User Story Map saved in the cloud to continuously reference and build upon.

Sadly, the face-to-face aspect of the principle has also been abused by organizations who fear a productivity drop in a remote workforce. As seen in job-advertisements worldwide, co-location is often cited as being a fundamental part of being agile and innovative.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has brought forth a surge of remote work out of sheer necessity. As businesses adapt to remote work to stay afloat, COVID-19 has inadvertently created a worldwide remote work experiment. Those that are lucky enough to be able to work remotely are generally enjoying it, as over half of the current remote workforce would prefer to continue to primarily work remotely post-pandemic.

When people are given the autonomy to work within their preferred environment, their motivation and productivity jump. Having the choice to work and approach ideas on their own terms sparks intrinsic motivation in individuals, which is a key ingredient in creativity, and fostering the emergence of new ideas.

Remote work is not only great for employees, but it’s also great for business. Remote work, and a distributed workforce, offer a level of inherent protection against major unforeseen events, such as the current pandemic. Not to mention it greatly reduces the need for expensive office space, and opens you up to hiring the best staff regardless of location.

Time will tell if productivity levels will drop with a fully remote workforce. However, if the recent trend of large tech companies – such as Twitter, Facebook, and Shopify – permanently shifting towards a more remote-friendly environment is an early indicator of success, it seems that productivity drop-off is not to be feared.

Suggested Revision: The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a product team is through conversation.

Building Great Products is a Team Effort

Principle in Question: Working software is the primary measure of progress.

While working software is an absolutely essential measure of progress, not all working software is created equal. The fact that software is working does not mean that it’s valuable to the customer. Ultimately we are building products for our customers, and if they find no value in what we’ve developed, we’ve made no progress at all.

Delivering working software becomes a good measurement of progress when it’s aligned with a proper product discovery process. Software development is a team sport, with many phases, from many contributors — such as Product Managers, Designers, Marketers, and others. The development of the product is the final step of a long process.

Contributors from many disciplines work together to understand what problems to solve, and how to solve them. Ultimately the goal is to create value, and value is created by solving user problems. Without the product discovery process, there’s no way to ensure that the ‘working software’ that was shipped has any value to the business or the user.

The end goal is to deliver value, and major steps towards creating value are what’s most important. If the team uncovers a root-problem that is causing pain for many users, that’s progress. If a design prototype gets glowing customer reviews, that’s progress. Removing features that no one uses, that’s progress.

Measurements act as incentives for behavior, and people will optimize their work based on how they are measured. If what we measure focuses on building things to hit self-imposed deadlines, it can have unintended results. The focus becomes less on solving users' problems, and more on delivering features that technically ‘work’.

While delivering working software is a critical part of building products, it is not the ultimate goal. Solving customer problems, and delivering valuable solutions is how positive outcomes are created. Progress should be measured based on outcomes, not on output.

People tend to knock the term ‘value’ because of how abstract the term is. However, within the abstract of the term lies the beauty of it — value is unique to each product. It's our job as a product team to understand our users' problems, figure out how we can create a valuable solution, and then go out and deliver it. Each step in the process is as important as the last.

Suggested Revision: Delivering value is the primary measure of progress.

Keeping the Principles Current

When it comes to building products over the last couple of decades, the Agile Manifesto may well be the defining set of principles that have inspired product teams to work the right way.

Both suggestions are minor edits, not aimed to change the underlying message that each principle is looking to carry. What they are aimed at is keeping the principles relevant, in an effort to allow them to continue to hold-weight and inspire the next generation of product teams.

Thanks for reading!

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