AGILE IN ACTION

Bob Sutton describes the attitude of wisdom as "the courage to act on what is known right now and the humility to change course when better evidence is found".

Granting authority (and freedom) to someone doesn't guarantee they will be empowered. If the environment is unsafe, or perceived to be unsafe, then the fear factor is likely to be too great for that person to speak up or take action. It feels like empowerment is something that comes from the environment itself. It's constructed between people, by the actions they take individually in the (physical and mental) space they occupy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: People only see what they are prepared to see . Try to see what is invisible to others. Recognise the hidden potential. Create a vision, believe in it and aspire to it. But that's not enough. W. Clement Stone said: There is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision . Have the courage of your convictions . Be brave and take concrete steps to realize your vision. Think about vision, courage and taking action when someone says "Oh that wouldn't work here."

Courage - how brave are you? was a goldfish-bowl discussion facilitated by Giovanni Asproni about courage and it's opposite, fear. This was the final session I attended on the second day and I was pretty pooped. There was a reasonable turn-out but understandably it wasn't as energetic as the first goldfish-bowl about simplicity . Nevertheless, it was an interesting discussion about a subject I feel strongly about. Fear is endemic in the world of software development. People fear taking longer to do something than they estimated. People fear missing deadlines. People fear saying what they really think. There are too many fears in the industry. Giovanni said fear usually leads to inferior results and failure, which causes stress . And guess what that causes ... more fear! It's a vicious cycle. I like to define courage as your ability to take decisive action in the face of fear. Things get done when people demonstrate courage. Have the courage to show vulnerability. This will help build trust in the team. Have the courage to make small decisions and reverse them if they don't work out. Have the courage to fail fast and learn. Have the courage to make commitments and be held accountable for them. Have the courage to demand fun in work. Feeling empowered in a trusting environment breeds courage . Command-and-control creates a blame culture and breeds fear. Funny that! Who'd have thought? Things don't get done when people are afraid because, like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, fear causes paralysis. Decisions don't get made, actions aren't taken, and opportunities aren't seized. If you can find the courage to be courageous you will find a new way of life. A weight will be lifted. So do yourself a favour and be courageous. Free yourself from your fears. Come on, seriously, ask yourself: In the grand scheme of things, what's the worse that could happen? As Jonathan Clarke said: I only regret the things I didn't do .

Compromised agility is, more often than not, the result of a lack of courage to seek, and to persist until you achieve, necessary change. Courage is an important value for me.

In the second edition of Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck defined five values:

Traveling home on the Tube last night, I grabbed one of the morning newspapers left on the seats. It was The Times Career supplement. Bored, I scanned the paper anyway and found an article titled "New Ideas Pay Dividends", which declared "employees freed to think imaginatively are more likely to produce better work". Intrigued, I read on.