Who Do You Trust?
Cognitive scientists say we are more productive and happier when our behavior matches our hardwiring. That is, when what we do and why we do it matches the way we have evolved to survive over tens of thousands of years. One disturbing behavior we are hardwired to perform is to decide instantly who we trust. It is a particularly interesting characteristic of this behavior that we aren’t aware of what we are doing or why we are doing it. This hardwired evaluation often prevents us from working well with others.
Agile development may not have had this problem on the list of things to address to create effective teams, but it’s nonetheless a part of the way agile teams work to build trust. Pairing, the daily stand-up, close communication with the customer and others inside and outside the team go a long way to build trust. When we have a better understanding of both the mechanism of our own behavior and what agile can do to help us, we are even more likely to have success as an outcome.