Two Forgotten Agile Values: Ease and Joy  The short version:
Valuing ease at work means that the team is always trying to
make difficult or annoying tasks more pleasant. It can be hard
to justify that effort on short-term utilitarian grounds, which
is why ease needs to be a value in its own right. Joy is perhaps
even harder to justify, but people nevertheless deserve to work
on projects so great they rave about them at parties.  In a
previous essay, I argued for the values of discipline and skill.
That's not exactly a brave stance: few people are running around
saying "I'd never hire anyone who's disciplined," nor do you see
many job postings saying that those skilled at unit testing need
not apply. The next two values are a little braver.  The more
easily defensible one is ease at work. When I visit good Agile
teams, I see them relentless chipping away at hard or unpleasant
tasks, gradually converting them into tasks no one dreads.
There's a pervasive attitude that, once we have the right skills
and the disc