The Choice To Choose How...

There's a struggle out there with whether teams in an organization need to do Agile ceremonies the exact same way. By ceremonies, I mean those events such as planning, retrospectives, stand-ups, review/play-through meetings, etc.  

There is no doubt that the ceremonies need to be done to implement the basics of being Agile (though, I hope those reading this also understand that only doing these ceremonies does not make an organization Agile. Remember, that truly being Agile also means being culturally Agile as well).

Many times I find organizations that require teams to:

• Estimate the same;  
• Task the same;
• Hold retrospectives the same;
• Create and use the same working agreement;
• Conduct the ceremonies exactly the same.

Consistency should definitely be prevalent. For instance,

We hold and follow the same ceremonies;
We use the same terminology;
We follow the same cadence (if using Release Planning, following SAFe, etc.).


However, how teams conduct or follow the practices within the ceremonies can be (and I'll argue, should be) different.

I've worked with and coached multiple teams in the same department who task differently. One team may use a tool such as Rally or Jira, and a different team may choose to do a physical board. 

Physical Iteration Wall at a company I am helping transform to Agile (Thanks to Post-its for being so colorful)!

Some teams may use ideal days to estimate, some may use points (I have my preference, but it is the team who ultimately makes that decision).  

Why allow teams to conduct their ceremonies how they want?  It gives teams freedom, accountability, and the ability to learn from their decisions.

Freedom

"They may take our lives
but they will never take
our freedom!"

Forcing (or, strongly recommending) teams to have to work a certain way, takes away the part where we enable and empower teams to make decisions that help assist them to work better. Some teams may prefer a physical board versus tasking inside a tool. Or, some teams may choose not to task at all. By allowing teams to choose how they want to work, allows teams, and the individuals within those teams, to have the freedom to make decisions that affect them.

Accountability

When teams are given the option to work how they choose, they also feel more accountable to themselves and to each other. Individuals and teams take ownership of what they put out. It's no longer about producing something they don't care about; they now have a stake in how the product was produced.

Learning

One of the biggest aspects of a team being able to choose how an Agile ceremony is done is that everyone is able to learn. How does someone know something does or does not work? Try it out. What happens when something is tried and fails? It becomes a learning experience, and that is okay. It is okay to let teams fail at how they do things. Only by failing will teams know what works best. 

By learning what works best, teams are given freedom and have accountability which leads to more personal satisfaction, less attrition, and better delivery of products.