The Art of Agile Development, 2nd Edition

Whole Team

AUDIENCE

Coaches

We have all the skills needed to deliver great results.

Modern software development takes a lot of skills. Not just programming skills; people skills. Artistic skills. Technical skills. And when those skills aren’t part of the team, performance suffers. Rather than focusing on a feature and completing it, team members have to juggle multiple tasks as they send emails, wait for responses, and deal with misunderstandings.

To avoid these sorts of delays and errors, Agile teams are cross-functional whole teams. They’re composed of people with diverse skills and experience who collectively have all the skills the team needs to fulfill its purpose. Broadly speaking, these skills can be grouped into customer skills, development skills, and coaching skills.

Note that Agile teams need skills, not roles. Sometimes senior programmers with a lot of company history make the best product managers. Sometimes project managers have great testing skills. Not only that, Agile teams learn and grow over time. Everybody works to broaden their skills, especially customer-related skills.

Throughout this book, when I refer to a “product manager,” “developer,” or other title, I’m referring to someone on the team with those skills, not someone with that literal title or role on the team. Agile teams work best when people contribute based on their skills and experience, not their position in the org chart.

THE HOLE TEAM

“Okay, you’re Agile now,” your manager says, vanishing ...