Heuristics for Effective Software Development: A continuously evolving list. By Allen Holub | July 24, 2021 | 3
Without psychological safety, respect, and trust, none of the following is possible.
- Process exists in service of people; the people come first.
- The best ways to work are collaborative. - Negotiation is not collaboration. Isolated individuals making heroic efforts are never as effective as collaborative groups. We get the best results when customers, business people, and developers literally work together.
- Welcome change—in organizations, processes, products, plans—at any time. You cannot be simultaneously rigid and agile.
- Outcomes matter more than output. A focus on output yields sub-par outcomes. Knowledge work has unique concerns, unrelated to those of a factory or construction site. The way we work, the work we do, and the organizations within which we work are all part of a connected system. You cannot change anything without changing everything. You cannot improve a system by tinkering with the parts.
- The most effective organizations are learning organizations. Learning—about both the products we produce and the way we produce them—is continuous. Learning is not just a normal work activity, it is the work.
- We continuously improve by observing how we work and fixing any problems we encounter. Improvement is an ongoing, not a periodic, activity. When something goes wrong, we pause and figure out a way to improve our process so the problem can’t happen again. Focus is on the system, not the people. Occasionally, we’ll stop and reflect on our work to make proactive improvements.
- Simplicity is essential. This rule applies to everything from organizational structure and process to the code we write. We do not waste time building (products or organizations) for a future we cannot predict.
- Work is transient. We expect to change, or even discard, everything we build, from products to organizations and processes. - Everything is an experiment.
- We work to make our customer’s lives better and their work easier. We do that by providing a steady stream of artifacts and aid that they find valuable.
- We think holistically. We work on complete products, not projects. If you have no projects, you have no need for project management.
- At the core of our way of working is continuous and rapid feedback. We make a small change, deliver the result into our customer’s hands, get feedback, then adjust what we do based on that feedback. That cycle is as short as possible—minutes, hours, occasionally a few days—not weeks. This inspect-and-adapt loop applies to both process improvement and product development. The changes we deliver are high quality (e.g. in code: no known defects, production ready, secure, &c.).
- Quality is not negotiable. (This rule applies to all aspects of quality, not just testing.)
- The best plans are strategic, not tactical.
- Predictions are unreliable. Estimates are not promises.
- Our only measure of progress is delivering into our customers hands things they find valuable.
- Management provides strategic guidance and support only. Tell the teams what you need, trust them to figure out how to execute.
- Give people the environment and support they need, then get out of the way. We trust autonomous teams to control the way they work and the environment they work in. Teams are self organizing and self managing. We expect them to change both the product and themselves as they deem necessary. If all the teams are working in the same way—using the same process or framework, for example—you have no autonomy.
- Autonomy does not mean that the teams do not coordinate with one another and with the larger organization. Alignment around everything from strategic goals to implementation technology is essential.
- The best teams are stable. Bring work to the teams; do not form teams to do the work. Fund the teams, not the work.
- Teams that depend on other teams cannot respond fast enough, so team members have between them all skills needed to get an idea into our customers hands. Skills overlap, so no single person is essential.
- People must start every day refreshed, relaxed, and able to do their best work.
- Relatedness, autonomy, mastery, and purpose are essential drivers. Rewards and punishments are actively destructive.
- Communication is central to effective outcomes. Communication effectiveness improves with the degree of physical proximity and the richness of the communication media. Face to face in real time is best, though not always possible, so we sometimes approximate that as best we can.
- This list is hardly original thinking on my part. It started out as a way to present the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto in a clearer and more contemporary way, though I’ve added a few things. It represents a snapshot of my thinking in a moment in time, not a set of irrefutable truths.