Thoughts on Return-To-Office and Agile Manifesto

As I think about our San Francisco office and realise that the pain of commuting is well outweighed by the chance to move faster, have fun in a “clubhouse” with interesting people, and to mentor some really talented young people… the Agile Manifesto came back to me.

If you’re familiar with Agile, you may be familiar with the rituals and planning “cult” that’s grown up around it and diluted the main ideas. So go read it before you tell me Agile is bad!

here:

https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

A couple things jump out:

>Business people and developers must work
>together daily throughout the project.

>The most efficient and effective method of
>conveying information to and within a development
>team is face-to-face conversation.

>Build projects around motivated individuals.
>Give them the environment and support they need,
>and trust them to get the job done.

Look, I love remote teams and I like my hybrid situation an awful lot. It’s a great balance for me. But I understand the tradeoffs. It creates a lot of overhead, and it can tip the balance - especially if your team is still learning to trust each other.

I’ve found it’s TERRIBLE if you’re trying to learn a new role or job function. Some of that comes back to trust, but there is very much a sense of learning from osmosis in an apprenticeship model. So, if you can get an in-office situation, I would totally do it and look at it as a positive. Even if commuting can be a pain.

Because…

Working software is the primary measure of progress.