It’s been a long time since I’ve followed TheRegister, so I was interested when someone sent around a link to a survey about whether or not agile scales. I had to re-read Question 5: What are the most important facilities to have in place? Here are the options:

  • Tools to enable management of project artefacts within sub-projects
  • Tools to enable management of project artefacts across the entire project or programme
  • Tools to support re-use and/or sharing of artefacts between teams
  • Tools to enable collaboration and communication between and within teams
  • Tools to support quality and integrity testing prior to integration
  • Tools to support performance and scalability testing across the integrated project.
  • Other (please state below)

Is it just me, or did the people who created this survey, miss the values emphasised in the Agile Manifesto, Individuals and interactions over processes and tools?

Now I’m not saying that you don’t bother with tools in agile projects, but if you’re talking about most important facilities, how about activities and demonstrated leadership that establish an open culture of teamwork, trust and honest communication?