(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr. Find out more at my newsletter.)
We’re almost there, my iterative (ha) effort to review the principles behind the Agile Manifesto – for creatives. We’re on the eleventh principle.
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
For people not familiar with IT, the only area of this that may seem odd is the word “architecture,” the structure of IT systems and the like. So let’s tweak this just a bit for creatives
The best structures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
There we go. So what can we learn from this principle?
The idea is basically this: that teams who-self-organize create the best designs, the clearest requirements, and the best way to get stuff done. This sounds great, but I find a few people worry about it; how can people who self-organize get stuff done?
That’d be a great title for a section. Let’s do that!
How Can People Who Self-Organize Get Stuff Done?
First, the entirety of Agile thinking and Agile methods is about self-organizing. The principles reflect this constantly, from communicating among people to reflecting and analyzing ideas and results. All of this helps cultivate self-organization.
(Also, most teams self-organize anyway, because no one can constantly be there monitoring their every move, though people try. So it’s more realistic.)
Secondly, I take the word “teams” in the broadest sense – this is everyone involved in the process, from the actual creative to the person requesting the work to the people giving feedback. I mean everyone involved – we’re all part of the team, even the folks ordering the work or the users testing the software as part of a beta program.
I find this approach helps because when you think of teams as broadly as possible (which you should), there’s more collaboration and communication, more trust, and far less us-versus-them. You get a lot more done as you’re automatically involving more people . . .
. . . and you cultivate self-organization with training, with being a good role model, with pitching Agile methods, and of course by using the principles of Agile and the methods to get your own stuff done.
So Why Does This Work?
OK so your team self-organizes and gets how to work together. Or they’re close enough that they self-organize anyway. But why does it actually work?
- People use their hands-on knowledge to design, plan, and organize. Like it or not the person up top of the big old command pyramid doesn’t know what’s going on all the time – the people doing the work do. This is doubly true for creative works, that often require intimate knowledge, gut-checks, feedback, and specific knowledge.
- People find the structure that works for them. The people doing the work don’t necessarily know what’s going to work at the start – but being self-organizing they’ll find out. Plus this exploration yields insights they can use elsewhere.
- People who self-organize communicate. This feedback tells people what’s needed, allows for adaption, and builds relationships to further the work.
- People determine needed artifacts. Agile principles and methods aren’t big on giant piles of documentation, but we do need them. When you self-organize you come up with what’s needed to track work, describe it, and record information. This saves time and increases clarity (also saving time).
Just remember, to make this work you have to make sure people are allowed to self-organized, encouraged, and trained or otherwise supported in doing so.
Where Does This Help Creative Work?
I’ve hinted at just how this affects creative work, but let’s get down to it – why does self-organizing support creative work – and how can you support it?
It Avoids Overstructure: Starting a creative effort with lots of unnecessary structures in place will kill creative work which needs a level of freedom and feedback and experiment. Allowing teams to self-organize helps avoid this.
- What you can do in your creative works is allow for self-organizing and be aware of when you’re over-attached to processes and procedures.
It Allows For Adaption: Creative work is hard to automate, even though many of us have tried (me included), and it needs room for adaption. Allowing for self-organizing teams allows for that adaptability upfront – people can find what works for them.
- In your creative works, support adaption by helping people (even if it’s just you and your client) change and adapt what works, with your eye on the eventual goal. That focus on value will help keep you from being distracted.
It Allows For Communication: Creative works are communicative work (even if sometimes the goal is to confuse, such as in a challenging game). To support communicative work people have to communicate and thus self-organizing teams support that – but also force it. When there’s no checklist being ordered and people are encouraged to communicate, you get more actual talking.
- For creative works, encourage communication among people – and communicate yourself. It helps to be supportive, finding what works for them, not forcing your goals of “how it should be done,” but helping people find what must be done.
It Creates Habits and Culture: Self-organizing teams build their own structures and methods – and habits. This means that there’s more than just some org chart – there’s good habits and in long-term efforts, a culture that evolves. People who develop their own structures,, methods, and so on will remember and embody what they’ve learned. In time this leads to even more productivity as this is in the bones.
- In your creative efforts, support developing a culture by finding what works and noting things that went right. In times the best lessons burrow into peoples habits.
What About Solo Creatives?
But what about solo creatives? How does this apply?
Recall that the “team” is everyone as far as I’m concerned – the client, people giving feedback, your roommate offering unsolicited advice. Even if you’re on there own there’s still “teams.”
What you want to do is:
- Find what “teams” there are – you and a client, you and an editor, etc.
- Encourage the teams to self-organize. Be open to feedback, listen, communicate, focus on goals.
- When possible, cross teams over. Share that client who wanted your art with a writer that you know. Share an editor with someone else. Build a larger culture among individuals to support each other.
- Even when it’s just you in the end, listen to yourself and your ideas. You’re a multitude – be your own team.
- Self-organize – don’t get too lost in other people’s ideas and advice, even mine. Learn to rely on your own wisdom.
Always keep the need to adapt and adjust and self-organize.
In Closing
The eleventh agile principles notes that self-organizing makes for the best results. This works because people communicate, determine what works, and create what structures and tools are needed to get those results. You can encourage this with
- Avoid overstructuring
- Encourage adaption with feedback.
- Encourage communication
- Encourage development of a larger culture – the self-organizing lessons we keep with us.
Self-organizing teams can produce the best results – even if sometime the team is one person.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
Now gear up for one of my top Agile Manifesto Principles, the 10th Agile Principle. Let’s get to it.
Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
It’s another one of those principles that I can’t really modify or need to tweak to apply to creatives. It’s simple – maximizing work not done is essential to Agile practices. Agile practices are a great way to get work done effectively and sanely. So to deliver things effectively and sanely – maximize work not done.
Of course simple, compact statments like this are the ones where we also need to delve a bit, so let’s just take a look at what the value of simplicity and maximizing work not done means to a creative.
Simplicity Is About Right Value
Simplicity sounds easy to describe – until you actually try to do it. Then I find its a bit hard to phrase it, but you can think about simplicity as not just delivering Value, but the right Value. You focus on what people need delivered – and as little else extraneous as possible. Remember, Agile is a way to deliver Value.
When you focus on delivering the right Value to people, then you avoid distractions, unnecessary work, and the like. You don’t just deliver value – you avoid delivering less valuable and non-valuable work.
Up front this means focusing on simplicity from the start. I find this helps with creative works because, with many options, and at times unclear goals, you have to choose options and clarify them. You may well have to help your client or end user find what they really want – because they may not be too clear.
This also means simplicity is about an investment of time – doing the simple thing might just seem to take more effort up front. As you’ll see, the benefit of this investment pays off.
Simplicity Is About Clear Communication
Focusing on simplicity also means clearer communications for three reasons:
- First, you work early to clarify what’s needed (and as noted, you often have to talk this out). This means that you have to work on and develop clear communications.
- Because you’ve worked on simplifying work, you’ve also got less things to discuss to distract you. Communications are clearer because there’s less to talk about.
- You also have less to distract you period. Simplicity means less chance of error, less rabbit holes to go down.
In creative endeavors, that can mean subtle works, assumptions, and hard-to-communicate idea, this clear communication is valuable indeed. The efforts that you make earlier (and the work you don’t do) make your life easier.
I find this is a great thing to communicate better with this simple rule; if it’s hard for people to communicate about a project or creative work, if you’re going in circles, it’s time to focus on simplicity.
Simplicity Reduces Waste
Because you’re not doing extra work due to a focus on Simplicity, you’re spending your time better. The work you actually do meets a need – a need you clarified by a focus on simplicity and not complicating things. Everything you do is almost certainly valuable, or at least more likely to be so. Remember the agile emphasis on reducing unnecessary processes and documents?
The focus on simplicity also reduces wasted time. Simply, you’re doing less and so there’s less chance to do it wrong.
Simplicity Is A Goal
So the benefits of simplicity are clear, but Simplicity doesn’t just happen – it has to be a goal. Your creative works need to focus on the simple, the precise, the effective from the start.
It’s probably easy to get everyone on board with this once they realize the value of simplicity (which is often found by discussing value). We all want less complexity anyway.
But remember, ultimately simplicity is . .
Maximizing The Amount Of Work Not Done
Yes, your goal is to do less work overall as an Agile Creative. Lazy? No.
There’s plenty of work you can be doing, so you focus on doing the right work. You work on what really matters, in a way you can keep delivering effectively. There’s all sorts of things you can be doing, focusing on simple, valuable work means you don’t get distracted or do unneded things.
I believe you should celebrate finding something is no longer needed. When you find something isn’t necessary, when you can ditch parts of a project, when you find something you can cut, good. I’ve actually complimented people on the job for finding something isn’t needed.
And when it comes to creative projects, remember that creative people love figuring things out. Turn some of that loose on simplicity . . .
But this all ties to one more thing.
Don’t Just Find Simplicity – Make It
You shouldn’t just seek simplicity – though you should – you should also find ways to make things simpler over time. Simplicity is something to build in:
- Streamline the processes and documents that you use to make them simpler, focusing on value.
- Find ways to streamline code that you reuse or templates that you use for art (shades of the 9th Agile Principle)
- Improve communications with simplicity, such as combining several meetings into one or having a check-in as opposed to elaborate email conversations.
- Drop overcomplicated methods.
Just as you work to deliver value, always be on the lookout to deliver simplicity in how you do things.
This allows you to not just help your client, but to constantly uncomplicate your life and your efforts. Each time you make things simpler, it pays off now and down the road.
Remember This Is Essential
That “Essential” part of the 10th is a final thing to remember. Simplicity? Doing less? That’s essential to agile and agile practices. All that clarity, all that focus, all those benefits? The’re indispensable.
So next time you find things getting complicated, remember simplicity.
Rounding Up
So let’s get simple with simplicity. Working for simplicity and looking for work not done is essential to agile practice.
To do this:
- Keep simplicity as a goal and develop it.
- Focus on value to keep things simple.
- Focus on clear communication
- Focus on reducing waste.
- Maximize work not done.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
Now on to the 9th Agile Principle, one of my favorites (it’s hard to pick a favorite), because it makes a great point often forgotten. It also applies to so many situations. Let’s take a look
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
Ah just soak that one in. By paying attention to technical excellence and good design, you become even more adaptable, more productive – more Agile. Simple, and elegant, so as you may guess I’m going to analyze the hell out of it. It’s not that it hides any excret complexity – it’s obvious – it’s that there’s a lot of power in this that anyone can use – and Creatives have unique opportunities to take advantage of.
Let’s take this – backwards.
The Goal: Enhancing Agility
Note this Principle spells out that technical excellence and good design are things that one wants to pay attention to – always. That of course seems obvious, because who wouldn’t want to pay attention to doing things right and designing things right? But it states specifically that this enhances agility – that it lets you act, manage, and work agilely.
The benefits of these things aren’t just “hey well done” – they’re that you use Agile methods and apply agile principles better. There’s a benefit beyond the obvious of “doing stuff well.”
So it helps to spell it out. If you want to improve agility, do things right and design them well.
For Creatives, which often deal with unpredictability, ways to enhance agility are always welcome. Creatives are almost always entering unknown territory, have challenges communicating work, and more. Anything to make work more adaptable, more predictable – more agile – should be welcome. More agility allows you to deliver more value.
So let’s look at just good design and technical excellence help you out – and help you be an agile creative.
Good Design
When you design something well, it’s more than just a “valuable” piece of work. It delivers other benefits that deliver agility. Let’s look at them and how they apply to creative work.
- Good designs prevents errors since you can get it right the first time. This means you save time since you’ve got less revision – and aspiring to good design focuses you on listening to the client and understanding work so you deliver value. That helps in unpredictable developments, which you probably face a lot.
- Good designs are repeatable in part or in whole – which saves time in the future. That lets you work faster since you’ve got other things to call on like design templates, reusable code, or helpful checklist. This can help you in creative works because you’ve got some work done already – at least the less predictable or more standard parts.
- Good design makes your work shareable – because you can communicate it. This makes it easier to review with clients, as well as easier to teach to people. Creative work has its challenges in communication, so good design makes it easier – and good communication means more agility.
- Good design is just good practice. Making something well-designed in turn helps you just learn to do things better – and that by definition will make work more agile. Creative work often involves multiple skillsets, so good design helps deal with that.
Technical Excellence
Good design isn’t necessarily the same as technical excellence. Good Design may be about laying things out and putting things together well, about organizing and making patterns apparent. Technical excellence is about attention to detail, about doing things right, and about not overdoing things. Again, it has obvious benefits anyway, but let’s see how it affects Agile Creativity.
- Technical excellence just means things are done right and done well. This ensures not having to redo things so you can move on – good for any form of organization, but in agile . .
- Technical excellence also means that you’ve learned lessons you can repeat and teach. Since many Agile methodologies focus on review and improvement, when you do it right once, you can do it again. This is important in creative work since, with so many options in creative works, having repeatable work is helpful.
- Technical excellence builds confidence in the people you work with and deliver work to. When people see you do well, they trust you. Creative works, which have many options and many variants, require trust.
You want to aspire to technical excellence period – but when you work with Agile methods, the benefits are even more pornounced.
When it involves creative work, it’s essential.
The Ninth Principle
The Ninth Agile Principle really is a great reminder that designing things well and doing them right has more benefits than the obvious – it lets you be better at being Agile. When you’re a creative it has some specific benefits:
- Good design helps reduce unpredictability, creates repeatable elements, allows work to be easier shared, and is just good practice.
- Technical excellence reduces doing things over, teaches you repeatable lessons and inspires confidence.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
Let me say up front this is one of my favorite Agile Principles (#10 is up there too.). It’s obvious, thought-provoking, and in-your face.
Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
Yes, the Agile Principles state outright that you should find and keep a pace that can be maintained indefinitely, and everyone should have that pace. I’d love to phrase this positively, but let’s face it, it’s a principle about not burning out.
Yes, way back in 2001 the Agile gurus were well aware of the potential for burnout, death marches, and more and made it part of their principles.
Agile Processes Promote Sustainable Development.
Agile processes make sure that development is sustainable – that the inputs, velocity, testing, processes, demands, etc. all are aimed so everyone (and I do mean everyone) involved could keep this up forever. This of course makes sense – once you find a doable pace you’re able to continue, predictably, over time. When there is deviation, you can adapt as you’ve got a stable pace going. When it’s sustainable you can keep delivering value.
This flies in the face of so much we’re taught about work, leisure, and so on. We’re taught to expect death marches. We’re taught to expect rushes. We’re taught to idolize being overworked. This Agile Principle outright states ‘bollocks to that’ and says ‘no.’ Or if we want to put it positively, says ‘yes’ to sustainability.
But I’ve seen so many death marches and overtime pushes I like the “no” part. But let’s get away from negative/positive, let’s talk about why this matters to creatives.
- Creatives are often in areas and industries that promote death marches and rushes.
- Even if we’re not in #1 we often do it to ourselves.
- The unpredictability of creative work may lead us to pace ourselves erratically anyway – and accept it as normal.
- Because of these issues we don’t try to find a way to work better.
- All this stress outright kills creativity – and the goodwill that’s needed for it. It’s a testimony to many creatives that they’ve sustained in the face of so many things.
Because it is so important this means . . .
We Need to Consciously Work On Sustainability
You don’t just say “hey, let’s be sustainable” and it happens. It’s something you work on – this principle reminds us to commit to it, to make sure we find a pace we can all work at, together.
This principle, despite the fact it’s a call to work appropriately, is also a call to work on sustainability. You need to take the time and effort to make work sustainable. You need to educate yourself on principles and processes to make things sustainable. Hopefully this is the collective “you” – all the sponsors, users, and developers in your creative work.
But it might be the lone “you.” Sorry, you might be the lone voice of sustainability and have to advocate. Maybe these columns can help, but let me emphasize that if you’re using Agile, keep reading up on it and researching it. There’s plenty of knowledge out there.
Note that this Principle means everyone in the project. It could just be you and one client, it could be a giant team and users/audience. So let’s talk about how the three different groups – sponsors, developers, users – can promote sustainability on a creative project.
Sponsors And Sustainability
Sponsors are the people asking for the work. It would seem their role is obvious – don’t overload people! Of course it’s not that obvious. Each of the three groups have different interactions on creative projects. So how can Sponsors work with the other groups?
Developers:
- Sponsors need to understand what pace Developers can work at and support it – perhaps even push back on those pressuring them.
- Sponsors need to work with Developers and be available so they can both assist developers, but also stay aware of their pace and sustainability.
- Sponsors need to listen to Developers; the developers know what they’re doing. In creative work, this is exceptionally important because of the little intricacies and intimacies.
Users:
- Sponsors need to understand User expectations – not just what is wanted, but what can be handled. it might sound great to shovel out a ton of stuff (such as game patches), but this may limit feedback and communication. Users can only handle so much.
- Sponsors should listen to Users and get feedback, finding ways to encourage sustainable development. This may also mean understanding User perspectives – and what they want and you want may differ.
- Sometimes the Sponsor is the User – and you’ll need to figure out how you feel in both roles.
In promoting sustainable development, a good Sponsor is realistic, listens, facilitates – and doesn’t overload Developers. I won’t lie – sometimes you become a firewall or a funnel. Be a good one.
Now a few warnings. Where does this usually go wrong in creative works?
- Sponsors often come to Developers far too late in creative processes – I’ve seen it a number of times. Sponsors should engage Developers in creative works as early as possible and learn their pace.
- Sponsors overload Developers. This often fails, leads to bad blood, and the “there’s more where that came from” attitude I see a bit too often in creative fields makes enemies.
- Sponsors don’t pay attention to Users or assume on what they want. They often get it wrong.
- Sponsors assume they know how the creative process works. Often they’re wrong because even if they are a creative, each creative is different.
With sponsors covered, let’s get to Developers – which, my guess, covers a lot of my readers.
Developers And Sustainability
Developers make the creative work. Also an obvious role, but a Developer’s role is really kind of strange – they’re an expert in making something who often deal with people who aren’t. Thus you’re trying to give people what they want when they don’t know how you do it. Though they probably think they do and it drives you crazy.
Worse, you’re sort of in the middle of the Users and the Sponsors. You spend a lot of time making something for the actual target audience, you do research, so sometimes you end up as a bridge. When the User and Sponsor is the same (say, if you’re doing an art piece for someone directly), they can still seem like two different people and you have to bridge the gaps in someone’s own head.
(Ever have someone argue with themselves about a creative work? Probably.)
Finally, you’re probably the one most aware of any burnout, overload, or unsustainability, and you have to tell people about it. Sometimes those people aren’t happy with you. OK most of the time.
So first up, if you’re a Creative (and you probably are if you’re reading this), get ready to do a lot of psychology for yourself and for others. You do the work others don’t do, see things differently, and are kind of in the middle. However, to make sure your work is sustainable, you have to think about them.
Sponsors:
- Give Sponsors feedback and information to help them pace themselves and pace working with you. The more pre-emptively you give them an idea of what’s sustainable, the quicker they’ll get it.
- Help Sponsors reach a sustainable pace – they don’t do the work, they may not know what it is. You might save them from burnout and being overly pressured – or help them find they can do more.
- Help Sponsors understand your work and what you’re doing so they can work with you sustainably.
- If needed, bridge the gap between them and the user on what’s sustainable.
- You’re also probably the one most focused on using Agile methods, so help them understand them – including the Eight Principle.
Users:
- Understand Users have a limit to what they can process and work with that. Their pace may be slower than yours, so you need to slow down, or faster, and you need to find a reasonable delivery. That may need to be communicated to Sponsors – and in creative work the pace may vary a lot.
- Users may not understand their own limits; be aware of the.
- Remember to work feedback from the Users of your creative work into your plans and pacing. Feedback can consume a lot of time.
- Learn to understand how the users think and communicate. Help bridge gaps with the Sponsors.
- Users might not get the creative efforts you put in – find ways to subtly make them aware (it helps set expectations)
A good creative Developer is aware of their process and abilities so they can not only pace themselves, but pace themselves with others, and help others pace themselves. Because you’re where work happens, you’re the most able to understand what’s going on and what can probably be sustained. You just have to make the effort.
Now a few bits of advice for Creative Developers trying to keep a sustainable pace in Creative work.
- Sustainability also incorporates probable interruptions – vacation, illness, training, etc.
- Yes, there will always be rushes. Minimize them, adapt, work them into expectations.
- Don’t assume because you know how the creative process works that you’re superior – don’t get arrogant. That can lead to over-confidence and/or poor communication with Sponsors and Users.
- Also remember how unpredictable creative work can be – communicate that but also work to minimize it.
Users and Sustainability
It feels weird to even go into this part – this is pitched at Agile Creatives. That definitely covers Developers and may cover Sponsors. But Users? They’re the end consumer of a creative product. They may not be that interested in all this.
I include this however because you, doubtlessly a Creative of some kind, will be communicating with Users (and thus you can figure how they can work with you), and probably are a User at some point (and can work better with others). It’s my small way to bridge the Developer-User gap in Creative work. Whatever side you’re on, you can help the other side work better.
One thing Users forget is that they to have to have a sustainable pace, and it’s easy to think “I can handle anything” delivered to you because you want it. However, getting too much of a good thing is not sustainable – you can’t enjoy it, can’t give feedback, etc. You to, even as a pure consumer, have limits, and pushing those does no favors to the people doing work for you.
Sponsors:
- I find Users are often very abstract from Sponsors, from idolizing them to being suspicious of them, to ignoring them. Instead, be aware of them and who they are – and their motivations.
- Understand sponsors have their own limits. Learn to be a responsible User in your demands and interests.
- Find ways to engage Sponsors realistically – if they actually engage you, be grateful (I find a lot of Sponsors aren’t to great at this).
- Be aware that the pipeline between Sponsors, Developers, and you has a lot of bumps.
Developers:
- Respect the Developers time and understand that they are often not only the limitation on delivery, they’e also the ones doing a lot of work.
- Engage constructively with Developers. In fact, the more you engage with them, the better you understand sustainability, and the more you can help them with feedback.
- if you’re really engaged with Developers, learn how they work on their creative projects. It’ll help you appreciate them – and you may learn some things.
I don’t have a lot of other advice for Users promoting Creative Agile to use Sustainability except for this – remember you’re part of the process to. Working with others means much better stuff on your end.
Moving On- Sustainably
Sustainable development requires everyone’s effort – and commitment. In a creative project, this is even more of a challenge. It requires everyone to get on board.
Of course if not everyone is on board, you’ll get to help with that because you’re the one reading this.
So let’s round up what we can learn:
- Good Agile involves sustainability.
- This sustainability requires all sides to be involved and committed.
- Each of those involved in an Agile project – creative or otherwise – has a role to play.
- Sustainability is more challenging in creative projects due to a variety of factors.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
We’ve passed the halfway points! We’re now on the Seventh Principle behind the Agile Manifesto. It looks simple, and in fact is simple, which means I’m going to go on at length about it. Let’s take a look:
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
Yeah, it’s pretty clear isn’t it? I’m very fond of it because the idea is the measure of progress is something that actually works. No maybies, no charges, no plans, no mockups. Something that works is how you measure progress.
But let’s tweak it a bit for creatives, since creative work involves a wide range of stuff from art to presentations to films.
Usable products are the primary measure of progress.
There, not much of a change, but we broadened it out. You measure progress primarily by giving people things that are usable.
Now of course, I’m going to analyze the heck out of it.
You measure progress with something people can use – even if imperfect
Your efforts should focus on giving people something they can use and experience – that’s it. It’s usable/working/review-able or whatever you want to call it. That does not mean it is:
- Complete.
- Ready for public release.
- Ready for all of your customers to use.
- Even that good.
You may deliver work that’s incomplete and lousy, but at least each embarrassingly bad delivery there’s something people can use to give you feedback. You will improve it over time.
As you may guess this means . . .
Delivering usable product means feedback
Giving people something they can use, no matter how incomplete or half-baked, at least means you’ll get feedback on it. It may not be nice feedback, it may mean a lot more work, it may mean a change of direction. But at least you know what to do next.
So the more often you deliver, the better you do getting people to their destination – because you learn how to better get there. It’s a lot like navigation – in fact your customer or client may learn about what they really want once they have something they can really experience.
But it’s not just people who give feedback. You and your team give each other feedback. If it’s just you, then YOU give yourself feedback (even if it’s “that was dumb”). You also learn by making something usable as opposed to reaching abstract deadlines and milestones.
There’s nothing like having to make something workable to really learn what you have to do, and what you shouldn’t have done.
Now to do this . . .
This almost always means iterative development – so plan for it
So as you’ve probably guessed from reading so far, this Principle really hearkens to iterative development. You measure progress with usable product, so you’ll be delivering useable product over time – probably improvements of previous deliveries. That’s pretty common in Agile, obviously and we’ve already discussed it.
But this means that anything useable you deliver is something you should plan for and keep in mind. Don’t just work on something, work on it in a way that helps you give actual results as often as possible. This could mean:
- Constant refinement, like putting a logo through more and more iterations.
- Delivering in usable parts, like a costume where each piece is complete (and, say, at least display-worthy).
- Delivering in review-able parts, like a piece of writing where each chapter is something that can be edited.
So you can keep getting work out, do that work in the best way that keeps delivering useable results. Because when you do that . . .
Useable Products Are THE Way to Measure Progress
Delivering usable products is the way to measure progress. There’s the obvious ones of “this customer is happy,” but you can also use this to get a bit more mechanical and procedural.
- If you have a list of features for something, like perhaps a game, as you deliver them in prototype, you can check them off. Yes, some may be wrong or changed, but you can get a rough idea of progress.
- If you are aiming for certain numbers, such as a performance score or loading speed or image size, then you can measure them – with workable product.
- Of course, you get abstract feedback from others, maybe customers or even beta testers and early access users. They might provide other quantifiable forms of feedback, ranging from yes/no responses to answering polls and questions.
From simple lists of features to complex analysis, usable product is not just a way to measure results in general, but gives you a way to get specific results, maybe even complex ones that need some number crunching. Thinking in deliverables and producing them gives you access to a wealth of data.
Though I wouldn’t overdo it. This is Agile after all, let’s not get complicated.
Rounding Up
Let’s review the Seventh Agile Principle for Creatives:
- Frequently produce something usable for your audience, no matter how imperfect.
- Iterative development is the best way to do the above, so organize your work accordingly.
- Because you are delivering something usable, you’ll get feedback and learn, meaning you can produce a better product.
- If you need to have deeper analysis, working products are a great way to do it.
It’s another simple principle, but it’s really great advice – progress is producing something.
Sounds like you could overload yourself with trying to constantly get stuff out, right? Well, let’s move to the Eighth Principle . . .
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
Agile principle #6 is a simple and sweet one about communications. It needs no embellishment:
The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
This is obvious. If you want to get the most done, effectively, talk to a person directly. I could probably stop here and you and I have easily discussed 70% of the value of this Principle.
Obviously I’m not done – and we’re talking Agile and Agile Creativity, so there’s some subtleties to go into. So I’d like to discuss this principle in a bit more detail, and focused on creative work. This probably would be faster if we were face-to-face, so revel in the irony.
Good communication is vital to all work – creativity moreso.
It’s obvious that you get more done productively if you actually go and talk to people, and in-person conversations convey a lot of information effectively. In-person you can judge gestures, expressions, voice pitch and more. In-person you sync-up with people better.
When you communicate effectively, you say more, hear more, and can work effectively. You can adapt better because you’re actually talking to someone directly and saying so much more. I’ve seen team behavior change and become more productive when face-to-face activities are introduced.
In creative works are challenging to communicate because they involve everything from intuitive interpretation to understanding complex emotions. This makes face-to-face or similar far more important because there’s just a lot to convey. So if you have to collaborate creatively, get talking face to face
(As you may guess, I accept we can’t always get face-to-face, which means) . . .
Face-to-face isn’t always possible, so make due
Communicating with people on your team face-to-face sounds great. It’s also probably impossible at many times due to location, travel, mutual loathing, and what have you. So what do you do? You find the closest-way to face-to-face in order to interact. This could mean:
- Video conferences (with sharing)
- Chat programs (of course)
- Phone conferences.
- Meeting face-to-face when you can and packing in all the communication you can do.
You do what you can. This may mean when it comes to creative works, you have to get pretty innovative. You may do things like sending people videos and following up with online chat, and it may not be face-to-face, but it’ll be as close as you can get.
Is this somehow violating the ideal? No, because . . .
Face To face is the most efficient and effective method – not the only one.
This Principle is a recommendation and a statement of truth – face to face is the best way to communicate within your team. It’s not the only one, it’s just the best. Agile isn’t big on hard rules and structures.
But sometimes the best is not available, so you do what you can. Don’t fret, don’t beat yourself up over it. Just do what you can.
A quick thought for solo creatives.
Does this matter to the solo creative? Actually, hidden within this Principle are two important lessons:
- You may be solo, but changes are you still are depending on other people for some things. Delivering supplies. Providing editorial services. Etc. Face-to-face still applies to these “team-like” connections.
- Are you taking time to really communicate with yourself? Analyze results, do research, consider where you’re going? You might not be – learn to pay attention to yourself.
A moment for review
This simple principle is pretty easy to review:
- Face-to-face is the best way to communicate with your team members.
- If Face-to-Face isn’t possible, learn the best alternatives.
- Even when solo, practice good communications techniques and take the time to self-reflect.
Simple one there. Good, because the next Principle seems simple – but has a lot of depth. In a way it’s a core to a lot of Agile thought . . .
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
So if Agile Principle #4 was kind of heavy, Agile Principle #5 is a bit more philosophical – but also is very thought-provoking. It states:
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
This one makes a lot of sense. Make sure you have motivated people, give them what they need, and trust them. It’s a great principle, and having seen the opposite applied, I can assure you it leads to failure when you don’t do this.
But some creatives are solo acts. So let’s add on to this:
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. This applies to any size of team, from yourself to a large group.
There. Now it applies to everyone from a hundred people to you alone working on a project. In fact, imagining how this applies just to you helps you understand how it applies to a team. Let’s take a look at this Principle:
Build Projects . . .
It may seem weird to focus on just two words, but the fact this is about projects is important. Projects have defined goals (even if they change) and ends (or potential to end). It’s important to have bounded activities and goals – and not just for direction or signoff.
Having a project focus means you can evaluate progress, know what you want to accomplish, and know when you’re done. That’s vital to retain motivation and interest in these projects. People who feel motivated may loose it if they’re going in loops and don’t know if they’re accomplishing anything.
This is even more important when talking Agile for creatives. Creative projects can go in all sorts of directions, never end, never be broken down. Infinite possibility gives you infinite ways to never complete the work.
Solo Creative Tips:
- Having defined projects helps you set goals and directions for yourself.
- Having defined projects keeps you from trying to keep all the information in your head – having notes, spreadsheets, etc. keeps you from having to juggle that in your head.
- Having defined projects will keep you motivated.
- Having defined projects lets you share them when needed – say, if you need help.
. . . around motivated individuals.
Quick, when’s the last time you worked iwth unmotivated individuals? Did you measure it in years, months, days, or minutes? Were you an unmotivated person?
Forget any happy motivational speaker talk, let’s be honest – unmotivated people do awful work. Many, many projects fail or are done halfway because of poor motivation. Many managers and leaders never pay for their awful job at motivating and finding motivated people.
Meanwhile, truly motivated people can achieve a great deal. Motivation is instinctive, and thus it guides and directs, inspires and drives; a truly motivated person brings their entire set of skills and interests and knowledge to a project.
If you want to have a project succeed, you want to find people who are motivated and motivate those there. I will state for the record many, many people are utterly terrible at this.
Motivation is a necessary part of any Agile method as it’s a light, adaptable approach to work. It doesn’t rely on someone directing or provoking work, it relies on feedback, direct communication, and initiative. Un-motivated people give poor feeebdak, ask poorly for feedback, have issues with communicating, and have no initiative. Agile methods of any kind don’t work without some motivation.
That means it’s up to you on any project to encourage motivation in yourself and others – and to find it. This is an entire area you could study up on to improve your work and leadership, by the way.
For creative work, you can guess that this is somehow even more important. Creativity is visceral, and the gut-feel of motivation is necessary to drive creative work – or even to feel creative. Creatives who are unmotivated often have trouble doing work or their best work as they don’t have that visceral drive.
And most work has some creativity in it.
Solo Creative Tips:
- Understand and evaluate your motivations – honestly. This helps you appreciate, follow, and continue your motivation.
- If you aren’t motivated, ask why. It may be something to address – it may be a sign you’re on the wrong path.
- It helps to have someone or someones to help you assess your motivations and state of mind in creative work.
- Learn how to coach and motivate yourself. Besides, it may be good practice for coaching and motivating others.
Give them the environment and support they need . . .
People need the right environment to succeed of course. The right technology, the right information, the right lack of noise (or lack of lack of noise).
When it comes to creative works, this is even more important because creative activities require certain technologies, environments, equipment, and more people aren’t always aware of. That monitor better have damned good color resolution for subtle artistic tweaks, you’ll want to get that bulk membership to a royalty-free photos site for digital work, and if your team works odd hours have the right chat software. Creative work’s “right environment” may be something not easily apparent.
It helps of course to ask people what they need- and listen. Which leads to . . .
People also need support. They need someone to solve problems, address issues, back them up, give them the professional and personal help they need.
(If you ever worked with a job without good support, well, you know how well that went. And why you’re probably not there).
For creative work, support is, much like the environment, something that will take effort to provide because of the many variables of creative work – and creative people. Listen to people doing the work like writing, art, graphics, and so on to figure what support they need – and provide it.
If you are a creative, learn to listen to and support other creatives on your projects. Creativity isn’t some magical spigot we turn on and off, and if you know that, you can help others.
By the way, on the subject of helping others, let’s get to helping yourself . . .
Solo Creative Tips:
- Be sure you have the right equipment for your creative works. That may seem obvious, but it’s easy to miss (as I once found using the wrong monitor).
- Make sure you develop an appropriate creative environment to work in. Imagine you had to set it up for someone else, and go from there.
- Support yourself as a creative – taking care of yourself, figuring what helps you be creative better, learning to take breaks, etc.
- I find that for creatives, having a group of like minded creatives helps you in solo work – they have good advice and insights. As may you.
. . .and trust them to get the job done.
Once you give people who are motivated the right environment, once you’ve got their back, go ahead and trust them to do the job. Help, enhance, guide, offer, so what you can to assist. But trust first (which may be hard when a mistake is made, but often they’re honest).
This is challenging in any situation – we’re taught not to trust people. One of the most revolutionary things about Agile methods is the emphasis on trust and transparency, which is probably why they can be so disruptive.
Creativity, which is often variable, unpredictable, and personal makes that trust harder to give as it’s harder to understand what’s going on. If you’re working with creatives, you’ll want to go the extra mile to trust them. That’s also because . . .
. . . trust is somehow even more vital in creative works. Because of the many variables there’s personal opinions, trial and error, and the need to experiment. This means that creative works, in some ways, can go further afield before coming back to the point and may need even more feedback than most works. Trust is essential for this – and to navigate the more esoteric issues you may encounter.
On a personal level, I think there’s also a kind of mistrust of creatives among people. Folks may see them as lazy as their job seems enjoyable. People may think they’re strange because of their work. Others may assume they’re unreliable because of the many variables in their work.
Most of that is B.S. But it’s a challenge for people.
Solo Creative Tips:
- Trust yourself. This is probably harder than trusting other creative people; we tend to be hard on ourselves.
- A good way to trust yourself is to keep and review successes in recent works (I do this myself).
The Right People, The Right Environment, The Right You
The Fifth Agile Principle is one of the most wonderfully obvious, no-nonsense ideas that really calls out how easily you can do things wrong. Get motivated people (or motivate them), give them what they need, stand back and trust them. Stuff gets done.
It bears repeating because, like many Agile Principles, the obvious gets missed. That’s why we need them.
When it comes to creatives, this principle requires thoughtfulness and discretion because supporting creative works may require extra effort – especially if you’re not a creative type. It’s one to keep in mind as you help people out.
And if you are a creative, hey – support yourself. And support others doing creative work.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
Now the fourth Principle of Agile Software, which we’ll be re-purposing for creative work, is simple until you think about it for two seconds. It states.
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
Easy, right? First, let’s tweak this a bit for creatives
Customers and creatives must work together daily throughout the project.
Still simple, but I’m pretty sure you’ve been in situations where you couldn’t get someone to talk. Or respond to email. You probably wondered if they were OK. Maybe the Fourth principle is harder than it looks . .
At the same time, despite your disbelief, you probably see the value in this. If you and whoever you’re doing work for are in communication, you work better, get feedback better, and so on. Work becomes easier, faster, and friendlier.
It’s just that this sounds like it’d be real hard to implement.
So let’s break this Principle down – and focus on how you make it work – to everyone’s benefit.
Customers And Creatives Must Work Together . . .
This is a bit of a “duh” rule. But pause for a second and ask yourself what working together with the customer *really* means.
This Principle doesn’t say one is in charge and the other isn’t. It’s not about following a plan or not doing it. It’s the idea that you and your customer work together. You’re a team, even if one of you sort of started all of this and is probably paying the bills.
So you want to make sure you and whoever you’re doing creative work for are actually cooperating together to get a result and thinking of yourselves as working together. This is a bit of a radical mindshift (probably for both of you) and you can help encourage it because, well, you’re reading this. Approach working with your creative customers as a team effort, which means:
- Encourage cooperation (of course).
- Treat work as succeeding (and failing) together.
- Develop a team approach, think of yourself as a team, cultivate that.
- Include customers (when appropriate) in activities, from status reports to team lunches.
By the way, this may have you askin “hey, who is my customer.” We’ll get to that, but let’s finish off looking at the Foruth principle.
. . . daily throughout the project
Yes. The Fourth Agile Principle expects you to work with your customer daily throughout the project. The reason for this is obvious – you’re in touch with the people you’re doing work for. Talking to them and communicating with them to get questions answered, get feedback, etc. means two things:
- You’re better directed towards the goal (even when it changes).
- It develops good teamwork (which leads to informal improvements).
Yes, you are in contact daily, interacting, daily, and by now you’re probably thinking “how the heck can I do that?”
Ideally, you’d be in touch with people you’re doing work for all the time; indeed, ideally you’d work with them in person. In actual reality, in an age of conference calls and distributed teams, it’s a lot harder to work with people daily. I find the best way to solve this is – literally – just do your best and be aware of it.
It’s an ideal to aspire you. A few things I’ve found that help are:
- Chat programs. Just passing an update to someone can help.
- Email summaries and statuses. Sending quick daily updates helps.
- Open Hours. Have a time in your schedule where someone can contact you; maybe you even sit in on a conference call or voice chat and anyone can swing by.
- Talk to some if not all people. If your customer contact involves multiple people, touch base and work with as many of them as you can, even if it can’t be or doesn’t need to be all.
- Cultivate customer communication. Help the customer develop this communicate-with-team attitude as well.
- Radiators. Have some kind of chart, status sheet, document dump, working beta, that people can look at and use to get update. It’s passive communication, but it’s something.
I tend to solve the need for regular communication by mixing regular methods (daily updates, radiators) and informal (using chat programs and upates). Combined together, people stay in touch overall, even if individual methods don’t cover everyone.
And yes, trying to convince people daily communication is a good idea may be hard. If you’ve got people who are heads down, who like their privacy, etc. it may be harder. Cultivating this is going to be a bit of work.
Ultimately, I find this part of the Fourth Principle ultimately wraps up with the first part. You work together, you cooperate. As you do so, you’re better able to communicate daily because you’re more of a team.
But there’s a complication . . .
The Fourth Principle’s Complication: Client and Audience
The Fourth principle may sound hard to implement, but it’s an easy one – except but there’s another wrinkle. There’s the customer and then there’s the audience . . .
If you’re doing a logo, it’s easy – the customer asks for a logo. You make it. The customer’s customers, the “audience” may or may not like it, but it’s probably no big deal.
But what if you’re making a tutorial? Someone may ask you to make that tutorial, and you work as a team, but isnt the audience someone you need to keep in mind, because that tutorial is for THEM. The audience is also a bit more of a customer.
Now take this all the way; you’re an author. You have no direct customer or customer team, just a lot of readers, some of which you’re in touch with some of which you aren’t. How do you collaborate with that ?
When working to use the Fourth Principle as guidance, you’ll need to understand just who the customer is and just who the audience is. It might not be easy.
Rounding Up
Let’s review the Fourth Agile Principle for Creatives:
- Delivering useable work focuses your efforts on what to deliver and how to deliver.
- By delivering work as early as possible, you get feedback on the work you’ve done, which improves the results and communications.
- Delivering work frequently creates feedback, communication, trust, and transparency.
- Frequent delivery of useable work requires you to develop the best way to deliver, improving how you operate.
- The shorter the timeframe the better, as it increases all the advantages of delivering useable work.
- Frequent delivery of work provides direction, guidance, communication, and builds trust – areas that creative work needs, but that are also very challenging.
One simple Principle that packs a lot of benefits – and a lot of challenges – in. Worth taking to heart, just be ready for the actions it’ll take to make it real.
But, you’re someone that probably wants to improve and grow – as does everyone on your team. Let’s look at that in the Fifth Agile Principle.
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
All right now let’s get to what the Third Agile Principle and what it means for creatives, and continue our journey to apply the Agile Manifest to creative work.
I’m sorry, Third Principle of Agile Software. In fact, it’s kinda software-heavy Principle, which means for creatives we’ve got to rethink it a bit. Let’s take a look:
Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
This is pretty clear: deliver actual stuff often. It’s just it assumes that you’re delivering software and that you deliver within a given timeframe. As a creative, you’re probably not delivering software, and we know all to well some creative works need delivery in compressed timeframes.
Let’s not constrain ourselves and think of the third principle this way:
Deliver useable work frequently, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Pretty clear? Let’s break it down and see what it means from you. This one is *dense.*
Deliver Useable Work . . .
Whatever you give to a client, customer, etc. should be something usable. It may be rough, it may be incomplete, it may be rather bad. But you deliver something they can use, even if upon using it they think “this needs a lot of improvement.”
So why are you doing this for them – and perhaps to them?
First, usable work gets you feedback. A (somewhat) useable product, like a logo or document, means people can evaluate how you’re doing and give directions – or confirmation. It may mean they can even put your work into use, which means they get feedback to pass on from other people. For creative works, which have so many variables, early feedback is important as it helps you navigate to completion.
(Shades of Principle #2).
Second, focusing on useable work focuses you on making things people want and need. What is the highest priority to do? What makes something “usable” versus just “better?” Asking these questions means you are more likely to focus on what’s important; developing a new logo that looks right is better than slightly tweaking RGB codes to get the perfect blue half the population can’t tell from most other blues.
Third, this focuses you on delivery. You have to figure how tomake whatever you do actually deliverable and accessible – which can be very revealing. Having to make something that people can use means considering everything from file formats to image sizes to spellchecked documents. You have to ask just what to do first and in what order. This is a great way to reign in your creative ideas and focus on something you can actually give solid form.
These three words are a great way to focus on getting the job done – delivering the right thing so you get feedback. It’d be great to get that early, in fact . . .
EXERCISE: Think of one of your latest creative works. What made it “deliverable” – and how much work did that take over doing the actual work?
. . . Frequently
If you’re going to actually give people a usable result, be it a comic strip or a piece of a costume, you don’t want to wait a long time for feedback. So when you deliver, whatever you deliver, however pathetic (but functional) it is, deliver it frequently.
Frequent delivery of work means the people you’re doing it for give you feedback more often. With more feedback, the next delivery becomes better (and perhaps faster). Frequent delivery means a dialogue, and enhances communications. In fact, frequent delivery can help lower barriers (psychological and institutional) as people get used to communicating and find new ways to do it.
This is very important in creative work as, with so many variables, communications helps direct your efforts.
With this frequent delivery, people also build trust. When a creative provides results to a client, even if incomplete, they’re taking the lid off of their process and giving people a view of how they work. When a client gives honest feedback that helps, the creative can trust them more. In both cases things are much more open and obvious.
This is very important in creative work as, with so many options and directions, and with work often being personal, mistrust or miscommunication can occur too easily.
Behind the scenes, thinking Frequency also means you restructure your work so you can deliver effectively. This can be challenging and even contradictory, say delivering the later chapter of a book earlier as it’s easier to do or more vital. But when you think frequent delivery, you think about how to deliver better.
“Frequently.” That one word in the Principle covers a whole lot.
EXERCISE: Think of someone you worked for where there was a lot of mistrust. How could more frequent deliver or communications have helped lower that mistrust?
. . . With A Preference For A Shorter Timescale
Well if you’re delivering all this useable work frequently, getting all that feedback, thinking how to make things deliverable, you also want to do it as often as possible. The shorter the better.
This part of the principle accelerates all of the other benefits:
- The faster you deliver the more feedback you get.
- The faster you deliver the more you communicate in general.
- The faster you deliver the more you optimize your work.
- The faster you deliver the more transparent you are.
- The faster you deliver the faster you get any mistakes out of the way (on all sides).
If there’s a challenge, it’s deciding just how frequent you really need to deliver. This is something to figure out between yourself, your client, any co-workers, and harsh reality.
This “more often” can get pretty common. After all you could optimize work to deliver daily or every other day. You might work directly with a client for a time or for an hour each day. If it works and delivers value then give it a try. In creative work, the more feedback the better.
By the way, I reccomend the timescale you use be regular if possible. Having an idea of when you meet, or when someone is editing a document, or when you have to send a file increases predictability.
EXERCISE: How fast do you usually deliver work to a client, and why do you work in that timeframe? Have you tried other timeframes – or any?
A Simple Principle With Many Repercussions
Delivering useable work frequently sounds simple – perhaps one of the simplest ofa the Principles, but it like all Principles it has hidden depths. Frequent delivery of useable work does everything from making you consider your work to enhancing communication. Besides, if you get anything wrong on the work or anything else, you get that fast feedback.
Work with people, clients and co-workers, to get that rapid and effective delivery into your creative works. You’ll be glad you did – or if you aren’t glad, you will be iteratively.
So in review:
- Delivering useable work focuses your efforts on what to deliver and how to deliver.
- By delivering work as early as possible, you get feedback on the work you’ve done, which improves the results and communications.
- Delivering work frequently creates feedback, communication, trust, and transparency.
- Frequent delivery of useable work requires you to develop the best way to deliver, improving how you operate.
- The shorter the timeframe the better, as it increasea ll the advantages of delivering useable work.
- Frequent delivery of work provides direction, guidance, communication, and builds trust – areas that creative work needs, but that are also very challenging
– Steve
(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)
And we’re back to applying the Twelve Principles of Agile Software of the agile Manifesto – originally meant for software – to creative works. Let’s take a look at the second principle, which embraces what usually drives us up a wall. That, for those of you with a long list of wall-driving, is change.
The Second Principle is:
Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
This is a principle I entirely agree with and am often terrible at implementing. This is because I’m often used to change being for bad reasons – and I’m sure you have similar experiences. It’s often hard to embrace change because it’s dumb.
However this embracing and leveraging of change is core to Agile, and that is what makes Agile so powerful. So let’s see what this principle can tell us about embracing change, even if we currently hate it.
You Embrace Change For the Customer’s Competitive Advantage
In Agile you embrace change for a reason, and that reason is to provide Value of some kind. “Value” is really the reason for all Agile practices and principles, and using change is no different.
Note that the second principle doesn’t just say “embrace change because it’s change.” It doesn’t say you have to accept every change. You embrace change for specific goals – and as far as I’m concerned if the change doesn’t help the customer, there’s no reason to accept a bit of it.
You have to help sort out if a change helps your customer, brings no benefit, or harms them. Then you, the creative person doing the work, has to work with the customer to help them understand your choice – which might be to tell them *the change is a very bad idea.*
Because you are a creative, as you know your work intimately, you can help a customer decide how to react to a change. The result may not be “yeah, let’s do that.” The results may be “this is the worst idea ever, let me tell you why.”
I think the change we learn to hate is the change where we cause harm or waste time by following them. We want to help people; there’s nothing more annoying than having that be prevented due to a bad change. But a good change? We can help with applying that.
EXERCISE: Think about the last project you did that faced some changes. How did you evaluate if they helped the customer? How did you communicate your findings? How could you have done better?
You Welcome Change Even Late In The Project
Even if we can embrace change, it’s annoying to have to do so when it’s late. You got a lot of work done and now it’s wrong? You have to restart some things? Why?
But these late changes may be valuable, and thus worth doing. As annoying as they are, we should embrace them – but how do we do that?
I think there’s two ways to do it.
First, we have to accept that many of our ideas of “done” are often the enemy. We think something is “almost done” and is thus a solid thing, immutable, unchangeable. When a change comes it offends our sensibilities of “done.”
But, if we think of “done” as a point we navigate towards, tacking here and there, we can embrace change. That late change means it becomes “done better.” By accepting “done” isn’t as solid as we’d like, we can find ways for the actual “final” product to be more what the customer wants.
Second, we should make our creative work easily adaptable to change. This allows us to quickly alter them when new requirements come in. A few examples:
- For a book, make the plot outline easily editable so you can swap things in and out.
- For a graphic work, you save the image “historically” so you have many versions, and use multiple layers to edit easily and retain old elements.
- For a training film you keep it broken up in many scenes for quick editing, only incorporating them at the end. You also never throw away a scene just in case.
So to review:
- Let go of solid ideas of “done” so you can embrace change.
- Do your work so it’s change-responsive, and can be adapted easily.
EXERCISE: Take one of your projects and ask yourself what are five ways it could have been more change-responsive?
Embrace Change
The whole point of the Second Agile Principle is that embracing the right change, even late, brings advantages. This requires a mind shift because often we’re trained or experience change as bad – we need to learn to outright embrace it.
I find you can get to this mindset with two things: focus on value, and embrace Agile methods and practices.
When you focus on value, you see change differently; it’s a chance to do better. It keeps your “eyes on the prize” and not on worrying over the latest changes or assuming the worst. It also helps you take a more “navigational” approach to developing works, adjusting to getting to the destination, or perhaps a better destination.
When you focus on Agile methods and practices, they give you tools to embrace change. Using them effectively and whole-heartedly helps you deal with change and get the most out of it – that’s what they’re there for.
There’s a lot of psychology in Agile. As you guessed.
The Second Principle Is Often The Hardest
So there’s the Second Agile Principle – embracing change. It’s perhaps the toughest one to embrace, but also one of the most potentially empowering. When we can alter how we approach change, we can find advantages for our customers, and be ready to shift so they get the best value.
It may just be a bit annoying as we change our mindset.
A quick review:
- Learn to focus on finding the competitive advantage of changes – if any.
- Re-think what “done” means so you can take advantage of valuable changes.
- Make sure your work is “change-enabled” so you can alter course quickly, even when it comes late.
- Learn to see change differently by focusing on value and using the tools available.
Change may be an opportunity; if we learn to see it and use it.
Now with change out of the way, let’s talk more value . . .
– Steve
