I’ve previously written about the importance of courage and discipline for agile teams, so let’s review another important quality – respect. The Oxford English Dictionary provides two definitions for which are apropos:
- A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.
- Due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others.
You might think that showing an appropriate level of respect is table stakes for anyone in any role regardless of their being an individual contributor or part of a team. That is true, but there are many dimensions to respect which need to be considered. Here are just five which I expect to see in practice in mature teams along with a few examples of how we fall short with each.
Respect for the organization’s resources
Producing excessive or unnecessary documentation, inviting people to meetings who don’t need to be there or not running disciplined meetings, and not regularly inspecting and adapting ceremonies or other delivery practices are just a few ways in which we needlessly squander the limited financial resources of our organizations.
Respect for our customer
Publishing out-of-date or inaccurate content in information radiators, failing to engage our customer in key ceremonies or the product decisions which they should have been involved in, avoiding the escalation of key blockers which our customers could have resolved or releasing low quality products just to hit a deadline are all examples of disrespect for these critical stakeholders.
Respect for our product
Skipping quality assurance procedures because we don’t have time, ignoring our Definition of Done just to say we completed our sprint backlogs, kicking low severity defects down the backlog, ignoring technical debt and regular refactoring show that we don’t really respect what we are producing.
Respect for each other
Making sprint commitments without full team participation, gold plating, showing up late for ceremonies, listening to make our point rather than actively listening, multitasking when we should be focused on what someone is saying, hoarding knowledge, not offering to help a team member when we are ahead on our work, and not having the courage to raise impediments which affect the entire team during daily standups or retrospectives demonstrate that we are putting our agendas and egos ahead of team success.
Respect for ourselves
Blindly following poor decisions without challenging them, making a sprint commitment which we know we can’t achieve, refusing to ask for help when it would result in more efficient, higher quality outcomes and failing to invest in ourselves (e.g. personal development, sleep, exercise) are common ways in which we make it difficult to look at ourselves in the mirror.
Confucius said it right: Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?
Easy in theory, difficult in practice 