If you try to explain democracy to someone who never heard of such a concept, you will probably describe it by the values, principles and tools used. Ask the same person a week later what democracy means and he will tell you something about the tools, "In an election one person is chosen by many people to lead the country".

He did not tell you about the fundamental values of a democracy. How come is that?

Values and principles are hard to grasp!

Values and principles do from inside dictate what we do and how we think but they are not easy to grasp, or even harder, begin adhering to.

Now, ask your neighbor what agile means. Most people within the IT business will probably claim to know what agile is, but when you ask for a description you will seldom get an answer corresponding to the agile manifesto. However, if you ask the same person what Scrum is about, he will probably be able to describe quite well what Scrum means. But agile is not less important than Scrum, is it? How come is that?

Tools are easy to grasp!

Agile has no tools but Scrum does! Think about the roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Team), the meetings (Planning, Review, Retro, Daily) and the artifacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment). That is easy to grasp!

What can we learn from this?

Use tools to learn values and principles!

If you want a team to learn and understand agile values, teach them using agile tools. 

There is also another aspect to tools: When working using tools for a while, it turns into a habit and your mind automatically changes. Through action you can change behavior.

Jerry Sternin wrote in the book "The Power of Positive Deviance"

It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting.

Let your team use agile tools for a while and they will embrace the values and principles of agile. The opposite direction is a whole lot harder.

Is it that easy? Well, it still isn't easy, but using tools it gets a whole lot easier to learn and embrace values and principles.

Do you think this makes sense? Then please share it where you hang around!