Recently, I had cause to ponder the values I hold as a member of a software development team. Values that, alongside other values I hold, drive my choices and behaviours. They sit behind the things I do and how I do them. They underly my thinking when considering how we can improve as a team and as an individual contributing to that team – for example, during retrospectives. This is not a manifesto of what I will value. This is an articulation of the things I do value.
In what I do and how I seek to improve as a team member, I have found that I value:
Throughput over Utilisation
Effectiveness over Efficiency
Advancement over Speed
Quality over Quantity
While there is value in the items on the right, I care about the items on the left more.
Note, that I say I ‘care’ about the items on the left more. I actually do care. I know that I care about these things more because it actually annoys me if I’m being asked to focus on the items on the right (probably because I know that they will be at the expense of the items on the left). I also know because I actually have a positive feeling when I am being asked for the items on the left (probably because I know that, over time, we’ll get the items on the right for free).
So, what do I mean by these ‘buzzwords’. Stick around and I’ll tell you in a series of upcoming blogposts. Some of these apply in ways that go beyond the obvious.
Acknowledgements:
You probably noticed that I used the same format as the Agile Manifesto. This is because it happens to provide a structure that I believe most clearly and concisely communicates the idea.
I’d like to say a special thank you to Andy Palmer and Matt Roadnight for the awesome conversations that helped me find the right words to express these values and ideas.