Marc Bless: Agile Principle 8: Sustainable Pace

Let's take a look at the eighth underlying principle of the agile manifesto:

"Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely."

What does that really mean? What are the implications for our daily business? Let's analyze this principle and see where this gets us.

"Agile processes promote sustainable development" - This is not a principle but rather a presumption which has to be proven by applying agile practices. In my point of view this sentence should be removed from the eighth underlying principle or at least be rephrased.
"The sponsors, developers, and users" - It's again a cross-functional approach which includes the whole team and all people involved in the product creation chain.
Values: Communication
Principles: Collaboration and cooperation between all stakeholders, Diversity
Practices: Real Customer Involvement, Whole Team
"should be able to maintain a constant pace" - The people involved in the product creation chain must neither suffer from excessive labor nor sit around idling and waiting. An important practice especially for the team is collective ownership of both code and responsibility. Let's call it shared commitment.
Values: Commitment, Focus, Courage
Principles: Frequent Delivery, Flow, Baby Steps
Practices: Energized Work (Continuous Pace)
"indefinitely" - It's not enough to keep a constant pace at the start of the project or for just a few iterations. Especially at the end of a project all people should keep calm and just "flow" with that constant pace.
Values: Commitment
Principles: Humanity, Flow, Limit Work in Progress
Practices: Motivation, Energized Work (Continuous Pace)

To say it in two words, the eighth principle is about "Sustainable Pace".

Also read in this blog post series:

Marc Bless