Agility Over Long-Term Roadmaps
If you’re deliberate, you can influence your organization’s leaders immensely. Still, you’ll only get that time if you learn to remain in tight alignment at each step. To ensure productivity and motivate programmers, it’s best to choose a release cadence that works for your team, whether it’s once a month or when a set of features is finished. Market what you already have instead of what’s in the pipeline, and avoid relying too heavily on long-term road-maps, which often change. Don’t force programmers to commit to completing certain features by a specific date, as it can negatively affect morale. Less process is usually better, as programmers are often self-managing and self-motivated. Allow each programmer to track tasks with their preferred tool and maintain a flat organizational structure to help them thrive.
The default assumption is that you can do anything unless a specific policy or agreement prohibits it. We’re starting from a position of trust. More freedom leads to more learning, and more understanding leads to better performance. By focusing on execution, we limit the system’s growth potential. By making ourselves indispensable, we make our teams and organizations less resilient. Once a decision has been made, it should be shared along with the rationale and perspectives that shaped it so that others can learn, too. Consensus is impossible at scale and needs to reflect how adaptive systems work. Recognize that freedom and autonomy feed motivation. Create an environment where it is safe to try and fail, and teams will learn and grow in extraordinary ways.
