Have you ever thought what Agile runs off of?

One of the most touted benefits of Agile/SCRUM is “visibility” from the top down — what is happening and when (reminds me of 1984, but that is another post).

Visibility is relative, a foggy morning you can’t see as well as on a clear day – simple stupid right ?
So the next question is — what provides clear visibility in a Agile/SCRUM project?

Integrity.

People run around saying what is “in” integrity or has “no” integrity …. but rarely do people talk about what integrity is.

In defining anything you first define what it is not.

Integrity is not :
→ ethical
→ right or wrong
→ religious
→ good or bad
→ moral
→ perfection
→ judgments
→ assessments

Integrity can be very simple:
→ Doing what you said you would do – no matter what
→ Doing what you know to do (even without being asked)
→ Creating an empowering context (always)
→ Being in communication the minuet you know when something is not happening

So how does this make Agile run? Things can work without integrity; whole countries are run without integrity. But it is to what level can they be run. If we were to put a made-up number on our own integrity of 50% and looked at what was accomplish by being at 50% — the possibilities would be ENDLESS to what can be achieved if operated at 100% !

Now one thing to keep in mind is – integrity is never 100% perfect. It is like pet hair — If you have ever had a pet you know that no matter how many times or how expensive your vacuum is, there is always some hair somewhere.

We can look at our burn down charts, increase our ability to estimate, have better planning sessions… do “more, better, different” AKA spinning wheels in mud, or look at what Agile is actually being run off of.

It’s the team, trust , and integrity.

This post is tagged AGILE, agile integrity, SCRUM, visibility in Agile, what is agile, what is scrum