The Fifth Agile Value

There I was sitting in a roomful of recruiters from one of the top three largest recruiting companies in the country and I was stunned. I didn’t have the answers.

They had invited me to give a talk on Agile delivery to give their staff an edge in finding the right talent. After a short but packed hour long presentation I could see I was losing them. I couldn’t understand why until someone raised their hand.

“Simon this has all been great. Thank you very much but the problem we face is not that we don’t understand the methodology. The problem we face is that get hundreds of resumes full of certifications but when we send them to the client they just don’t work out. We need to separate the people who look good on paper from those that can get the job done.”

It makes sense. At the heart of Agile or any framework is the empowerment of the people developing the product. Only one of the four values points to a solution but “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” doesn’t seem to get there as it’s about talking to each other, not how we do that.

I have heard a phrase that pops up again and again over my career that fills this gap.

“Attitude over aptitude”

What attitude are they referring to? It is the ability to work effectively in a team and do whatever is required in service of the team. It is more valuable to have a team that works together to ship value to the customer than a bunch of rock stars who can barely put a song together because everyone wants to play lead.

This is not a new idea and is echoed in many tech companies around the world. Most recently Atlassian overhauled its performance review system to weed out “brilliant jerks”. These are talented staff who smash their targets but do so while being high maintenance or disruptive

The soft skills of empathy, caring and sharing of work are becoming just as important as the Agile methods that many certifications are trying to instill. So while certifications are good for Agile team members, their experience and attitude for working within a team are a better reflection of their suitability.

Many of the best team members I have ever worked with had little to no certifications. They would however lean in heavily to building reciprocal relationships and stepping in to help with tasks outside their role.

Sitting in that room with the recruiters I thought about myself in their shoes. What would I want to know from a potential new team member to understand whether they could help us deliver to customers?

“Before any certification I would ask them their interpretation of the Agile values and principles. Then I would ask them to tell me a story of how they lived these values and principles when the team faced a challenge in their work.”

This would be my advice to you. When considering new team members look past Agile certifications and ask to see if this person can show how they live those values day to day with their team members.