What is the one thing that can truly enable individuals and teams to collaborate and innovate with agility?
All too often people look for salvation in the latest tools and technology or in overly-specific processes and best practices. All of these things will make a difference but they are useless without a culture that promotes the right principles. Those in the software industry should be well versed in this concept as it is captured in the first declaration of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development which prioritizes “individuals and interactions over processes and tools”. Yet this most important principle is lost on many people.
Software developers and others in contemporary business can learn from successful teams in other domains such as jazz, basketball, and even military special forces. In all of these fields, multi-disciplined teams integrate innovative contributions from highly capable individuals into group and individual behaviors. They improvise and act with true agility when the path forward is unknown or unexpected challenges arise.
To learn more about principles that can enable true agility, read the article, The Pursuit of True Agility.