The 7th principle of the Agile Manifesto is:

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Let’s talk what this principle means in real projects, and then get a bit more general as to why it’s good.

How does this principle show up in a real Agile process? There’s a concept we call “velocity”. We assign velocity points for new functionality — not tickets completed! The danger of using “tickets completed” as a proxy for project value is that fixing a bug means closing a ticket. But, fixing a bug means the original ticket wasn’t done right, a.k.a: the software produced wasn’t “working software”. So, if someone spends a day setting up user avatar uploads, they’ve gotten 2 points of velocity. If someone spends a few hours fixing the login system because it was supposed to use emails instead of usernames, they get no velocity points.

If you’ve never read about the Agile manifesto, you should. It represents the absolute cutting edge of the software development industry.

I’m starting a 12-part series of blog posts on the Agile Principles, discussing what they mean, and what they look like in the real world. It’ll be like an Agile dodeca-thalon.

Welcome to #1 of 12.

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

What we mean by this is that above anything else we do — above code formatting, testing, meetings, planning, sometimes breathing — our #1 goal is valuable software. If we’re not delivering value, we have no reason for existing. “Business value” we often call it. We always focus on delivering the most business value possible given the amount of time we have. Sure, the spinning cornflower blue logo is hot stuff, but we’re going to focus on the authentication system first.