It's our job to prioritise, not the customer's

Audio versionWe are not making it "our highest priority to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software" if we lose our shit when the customer won't put their requests in order. Why should we even expect them to do so?

In the absence of a provided value order, or given an exclamation of "needing it all", it is up to us to help the customer prioritise and identify opportunities for early and often increments of useful product, for their competitive advantage, or do it anyway ourselves if they refuse to. It is up to us as the supplier to sequence and make shippable the deliverables in a way which would benefit the customer should they decide they indeed would like to use what's been developed so far.

We shouldn't expect our customers or "stakeholders" to "get on board" with agile ways of working. We need to change our behaviour first, and focus on doing the very best by our colleagues and customers. Only then do we, as agilists, stand a chance of effecting genuine positive change.