One thing which has been really bothering me lately is running up against folks who insist on defining "value" in the narrow terms of that which can be directly observed by users' eyeballs. Isn't #agile supposed to know better? A thread.
I'm legitimately confused about why anyone claiming to be #agile would be so myopic as to say that investing in the underlying technology platform, paying down technical debt, or training a team in a helpful technology is somehow less than "feature dev".
Don't they know that feature factories are bad? It's been my experience that an exclusive focus on "putting new functionality" in front of the user leads to a loss of product focus. It also destroys morale and leads to insane increases in technical debt.
Don't they know that learning is a part of staying effective and maintaining a competitive edge? The same folks who say "let them learn on their own time" because they don't want to "pay for it" generally those with a poor grasp of what actually costs money.
Technical debt is called technical debt for a reason, so I'm going to temporarily run with the finance metaphor for a second or two. Managing money poorly leads to all sorts of bad stuff for companies.
Failing to invest in technology when appropriate to do so has some nasty parallels. Imagine a company refusing to invest in its own betterment and instead insisting on only pouring money into instruments which generate dividend! Folks would cry mismanagement!
It's the same thing with people who scream #agile while opting to define "stakeholder value" too narrowly. These same people fail to see the inherent value of acting responsibly with customers's money and trust.
A true #agile shop makes themselves an equal partner of their customer and always acts in service of that partnership. Prioritizing "new features" over technology excellence doesn't show responsible partnership.
If you work in a place that doesn't give you the *ongoing* opportunity to refactor and improve in the name of maintainability, invest in the technical platform, or learn something new, then maybe you should find a new place to work.
Tech value is value. Don't forget it.
