Friday, April 19, 2024

What does the 5th Agile Principle (Motivated Individuals who are Trusted) look like in Action?

Many want to go Agile or claim to be Agile. The question is, will you align with the Agile values and principles? In this article, I expand on the fifth principle to better understand what it means and attempt to identify what evidence looks like to determine if a culture change may be occurring. What is this principle?  

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. Agile recognizes providing employees with ownership of their work can increase engagement, productivity, and happiness. There are strategies to get employees engaged, continually educated, and building on their strengths. Management values employee opinions, appreciates them, and trusts that they can get the work done. 


With communication comes the importance of listening. Listening means hearing and understanding what the other is saying and what they are not saying (hence the importance of nonverbal cues). Face-to-face also helps with understanding silence. Is silence due to a lack of understanding, not being engaged, or other reasons? Face-to-face nonverbal cues can help probe the reason. Another aspect of collaboration is being assertive. Quietly listening does not lead to building ideas. Therefore, communication is a balance between being a collaborative speaker and a respectful listener. With this in mind, what tangible actions exhibit promoting face-to-face communication?

  • Teams have the ability to make decisions, such as how to complete and size their own work.
  • Management trusts team decisions and minimizes command and control.
  • Teams are kept whole and members are treated like people, not fungible resources.
  • Management provides transparency in decision making.
  • Management provides organizational goals such as employee engagement. 
  • The PO provides release and sprint goals.
  • Team members demonstrate their working software during sprint reviews.
  • The Scrum Master provides a servant–leader approach.

It is up to you to determine what supporting evidence looks like when a company believes in motivating individuals and trusting them to get the job done. It is worth experimenting with this as it will help you better understand and embrace the Agile principles. The ultimate question is, do you believe that business and development should work continuously together as a team?

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Learn more about what other Agile Principles look like in action:

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