Again and again you hear the question why you should work agile at all – it worked in the past. Yes, that’s true, but just because it used to work in the past doesn’t mean that it can’t be optimized.

Who doesn’t know this situation: many processes in a company are long and you have the feeling that it takes months before a decision is made. Processes are outdated and everyone cooks his own soup without looking left or right. Someone might see what I’m doing and because of this attitude, at some point nobody knows exactly what the others are doing. And what is even worse – the relationship to the customer is lost. The danger here is that the employees no longer work out of motivation, but only so that money is in the account at the end of the month. Can that really be it?

Here are 5 reasons why it pays to work agile.

Pulling together at eye level

Working in an agile team means that the members of a team work together towards a common goal. There is a vision that drives everyone on the team. Working agile means treating your colleagues with respect and meeting them on an equal footing. This means, for example, that you arrive at meetings on time, that meetings have a time box, that you listen to each other and let them finish. It also means that the work of the others is valued, because only together can the goal be achieved.

Making tasks transparent and finding solutions

Do you know this? You’re working on something and when you show it to your colleagues after weeks of work, you find out that colleague xy has already developed such a concept. So your own work is not only redundant, no, you have used the resources incorrectly. But if tasks are made transparent, redundant tasks can be discovered and coordinated at an early stage. Another advantage of transparency is that others know what you are working on and can therefore consciously offer their support.

As a team you are stronger

Not only do you work together as a team, you also deliver together. So in a team, everyone knows what’s coming in the near future and how the tide can best be managed together. Even if each person has his or her own special field of activity, it makes sense for everyone to have a basic understanding of the requirements. In this way they can support each other if necessary. If everyone looks at the task with their know-how, the team improves the quality of the product.

Feedback culture

Every human being probably has in himself the ambition to become better and to learn. Active feedback contributes to this and promotes this behaviour. This means that it should be both praising and constructive feedback. It is important, however, that feedback does not take place once a year, but that there really is a feedback culture and that people give each other regular feedback.

Self-organisation

Self-organisation is a challenging topic, especially for a new team. The leadership that would otherwise be assumed by the team leader or the boss now moves into the team. But that’s good, because that way the team can make decisions together. As a result, decision-making processes become shorter and the time span until the product reaches the customer is shortened. And as a result, the team also bears more responsibility – another motivating factor.

These are only a few reasons why it is worthwhile to work agile in a team. But of course it is also challenging to work in a self-organized team. But this is exactly what is exciting about it, in a short period of time you learn a lot and the work has meaning and motivation again!