Much of our communication is nonverbal, and the intonation and body language we receive from others helps us interpret their feelings as we discuss projects and convey ideas. Face-to-face communication has been surprisingly hard to recreate through virtual meetings, where technology allows just one speaker at a time and where lag and quality issues create an uncanny valley between attendees that often make these conversations feel unnatural.įace-to-face communication also offers the ability to empathize with others more easily than virtual forms of communication. And if the conversation takes place around a whiteboard, illustrations and diagrams can quickly be drawn to provide context. My years of experience in leading product teams give me cause to believe that the need to convey clarity and empathy are the two biggest reasons.įace-to-face communication is the best way to achieve clarity because it gives both parties the opportunity to ask questions, ensure understanding, talk through problems, and safely speak candidly about issues in a project. If we want to understand how we can make Agile work within hybrid environments, it’s important to understand why face-to-face communication was deemed important enough to earn a spot on the Manifesto. Why is face-to-face communication so important to Agile? Teams that succeed will reap the benefits of hybrid and asynchronous work for the long term, while still delivering products that delight customers. But it will require organizations to do some rethinking and retooling to communicate and collaborate across locations to keep the people-centricity that makes Agile work. With one of the core tenets of Agile being “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation,” Agile’s future success depends on the ability of teams to share information effectively in hybrid and asynchronous work environments where face-to-face conversations aren’t always an option.įortunately, I believe that Agile is able to adapt to this new, hybrid era in the evolution of work. As a result, the Agile Manifesto - conceived at a conference in Snowbird, Utah in 2001 - has become gospel in the field, literally carried from a mountain top as 12 commandments for teams to follow to deliver better projects faster.īut the last two years of remote work and the transition to hybrid and distributed teams are testing the Manifesto’s resiliency.
Agile’s emphasis on short development cycles and frequent iteration enabled developers to meet the accelerating market demands brought about by the digital transformation - especially in contrast to the planning-heavy waterfall methodologies that preceded it.Īgile ushered a major shift in thinking about product.
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Since its creation over two decades ago, Agile has become one of the most important disruptions in how software products are created.