Direction is more important than speed, Really?

We have heard many times like “Direction is more important than speed. Many are going nowhere fast”.

What does this mean? Why is Direction necessary? For software products also, do we need to focus on the direction?

Let’s think about it:

1. when you are going to the office, do you take the correct turn and take the shortest path to reach the office?
2. When you are investing your money to get better ROI, do you consider the multiple investment options and pick which is the most suitable in your scenario?
3.  You get married and as a life-partners to each other, do you consider few parameters (like financials, working-life balance etc.) before starting a family?

If the answers of all these questions are “YES”, it reflects that “you are not only executing your action-items, you are also planning and setting the directions up for the future.”

Then, why should not planning & direction should be set up for the software products?

Let’s consider another point of view:

Once Charles Darwin said – “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

We always heard that “Change is the only constant”. Consider below image which showcasing the expectation-zone and product journey: -

As we see in the above image, the expectation zones are moving with time. It is true for products also. There is one set of expectation from the customer when product manufacturing starts. However, as product development goes further, the customer's expectations & requirement also change. Therefore, it is necessary to accommodate these changes in the product development phase. It is necessary to follow the right “direction” while developing the product so that maximum business value might be achieved.

Agile is a culture that facilitates the environment which embraces the changes and motivates the team to work on the most important requirement. It provides “Direction” along with speed to develop the product. (You can read more about agile at the below location: - https://agile-is-culture.blogspot.com/2018/06/agile-inculcating-culture-of-ci-cd.html )

Now, the question is how Agile facilitate such an environment which is responsible to provide the correct direction to team & product? As we already know there are 4-pillars of Agile Team:-

1- Scrum Team
2- Product Owner
3- Scrum Master
4- Stakeholders

Let's see the point-of-view of each entity: -

Scrum Team Member – “I do my work and I do it well, but my race isn’t won until all my fellow team-members cross the finish line with me. We win as a Team. I check my title (as well as ego) at the door; I am willing to do whatever it takes to help the team succeed, even if that means working outside my area of expertise or comfort zone.”

Product Owner – “I own this product and I want to see it succeed. I will only ask the team to build what has Business Value and ROI for my organization. I am a consensus builder and I love marketing and selling the value of what the Team has accomplished.”

Scrum Master – “I don’t succeed unless the Team Succeeds. My mission in life is to grease the wheels and ensure that everyone is playing nice and that the process is running smoothly.”

Stakeholder – “The Product that the Scrum Team produces for me has value, I need to be involved in providing ideas and seeing the results. Please don’t keep in dark and feed me the misinformation. I would rather be a part of development process and informed of how things are actually going, the good, the bad and the ugly.”   

As we saw, each component of Agile-Team is committed to deliver the value. They put their efforts in One-Direction which ensures that highest-possible value is produced for the business.

Agile is culture which sets the sync between the direction of product development & team's effort.

Always remember:

"You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight."  - Jim Rohn