One concept within Agile development practices is especially important to distinguish teams/organizations that have adopted not only the practices but also the culture and mindset needed to be fully Agile. This is the concept of having engaged teams/individuals pulling new work rather than having work pushed at them.
People can be interested and have ambitions to control their own work load and work directions but if they feel somehow threatened making decisions they will hesitate or refrain from making them. Those perceived threats can be anything from individual managers working in a control and command fashion with their own agenda to company supported policies enforcing lengthy approval processes. Both examples remove trust in the individual and sets the expectation that the company need protection from the individual contributor.
The contradiction here is that Agile practices should be fully transarent and the mechanisms are there to support transparency. So, in fact the level of control, or rather using the word insight, is much higher than in a phased approach where you rely on peoples perception of progress instead of having tangible working code.
The mindshift from control and command to servant leadership is fundamental and effects most practices. If the team is self-organizing and decisions are made at the lowest level there must be room for teams to make their own decisions.
One example here is how training is presented. Traditionally we have created solutions to problems and then tried to convince teams that this is the best way to solve the problem.
Instead we should provide teams with a smorgasbord of services and tools for them to try out and make their own, to solve their specific problem the best way possible by them. The teams should take ownership of the solution and not spend time challenging someone elses approach. With that said, we do not want numerous different solutions to the same problems. As for any good smorgasbord you need recommendations finding the best stuff, but the final decision is yours.
