Importance of Trust

It's fascinating how important trust is in Agile software development. It appears in many studies as a characteristic of effective teams. And trust can also be found as a decisive factor in whether distributed team succeeds or fails.

It's easier to trust someone you know. Even meeting a person once can make a big difference. After that one contact it is much easier to continue the conversation via some other tools like VoIP. That's the reason why even teams that are destined to work remotely should have at least some time under one roof in the beginning. This investment will pay off in the long run. (Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location). )

Another place where trust is needed is the interface between business and development. (Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers.) The lack of trust from business can be perceived as too much attention into implementation details. Management should only decide what is being built and why and the teams should decide how it is built. It's also not uncommon to hear that developers are slacking off.

But I think the deal needs to go both ways. If the developers don't want business people to meddle with their work, they should provide them with visibility and concentrate on working on the issues that make most sense from the business point of view. Not necessarily on the things that are coolest, can be built with latest tools or offer the biggest mental challenges. Hopefully in many cases these can be combined and making the things the users need can be fun. But in reality this is not always the case.

To me, one essential thing in Agile software development is the acceptance of uncertainty. The only certain thing is the fact that things change. If you want to stay successful, you need to be able to adapt to different circumstances. And you need to have people around you who you can trust. Show them the direction and trust that they will find the way. (Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted.)

(The sentences in parenthesis are quotes of principles behind the agile manifesto.)

Finally, I want to share a wisdom my father used to say: "Trust is extremely easy to lose and very difficult to win back." Works both in business and in personal life.