Tom Breur
14 September 2014
Setting priorities in a
flexible and responsive way is one of the cornerstones of Agile. An important
part of adapting to change in the environment is submitting the entire team’s
resources to the customer. Sometimes, we may feel an urge to decide what is “best”
for your customer, but he ultimately must have the final say in priorities.
Developers never “own”
their own resources. We work to serve our customer. In Agile teams we grant the
privilege to set priorities to that Customer in an
XP framework (or
Product Owner if
you’re doing Scrum).
With that right comes an obligation to spend these resources wisely, and in
line with corporate strategy and both short-term and long(er)-term objectives.
As tempting as it
sometimes is, it’s not right for us developers to “claim” development resources
by choosing ourselves what to work on, by setting priorities on your own. Don’t
withhold what isn’t yours, stick to your role. Infringing resources from the
customer alienates him, and violates trust in the team. The onus is on us
developers to “sell”, to make a case for certain activities that don’t
obviously provide immediate value to the customer. If you fail to get your
point across, maintain a dialogue, and maybe try again later. Like Winston
Churchill said: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage
to continue that counts.” But in the end, the customer decides.
This doesn’t suggest in
any way that team members should not be empowered. To the contrary. It’s our
obligation to know how to develop
products (and we may give advice on that, when asked), our customers know which ones (first)! Transparency helps
customers understand why things sometimes take longer than expected. By
concealing where development effort goes, you are not doing anybody any favors.
Return resource ownership where it belongs: the customer. Business alignment
will benefit.
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