AGILE IN ACTION: Setting Norms to help internalise Agile values

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Setting Norms to help internalise Agile values

It takes time and plenty of coaching to instil Agile values in someone, and help them develop Agile principles into an intuition to do the right thing. Also, there are many fuzzy, unpredictable, everyday situations beyond the scope of Agile principles and practices, which are governed by people factors such as mood, demeanour, intention, and motive, to name but a few. In these situations one should be guided by the Agile values to derive an appropriate course of action. Without experience, this can be difficult to do.

For a team that is new to Agile, I really like the idea of having them set some Norms to be applied during the project. Conducted as a workshop at the start of a project, setting the Norms can help novices translate abstract values into concrete behaviours, without guiding principles. And, as a team exercise that results in consensus, the team can begin to bind around some simple, basic ground rules. Applying the Norms (or concrete behaviours) can help people to internalise the more abstract values. It's a good idea to keep the Norms big and visible, to serve as reminders, by posting them publicly around the workspace.

I reproduced the original list of Norms referenced by David Anderson in his blog post, Where did the 40 hour week go?:

Have fun!
Honor time limits
One speaks; all listen. Listen to understand
Everyone participates; no one dominates
It's okay to disagree
Anyone can call a timeout
Reaching consensus means that you're okay with a decision. It doesn't mean that you like it. It does mean that you agree not to talk down about it or quit over it.

I discussed these Norms with a few colleagues and we liked them a lot. Here's a few additional norms we came up with: