Fun

Some people tend to raise their eyebrows a little when people talk about agile software development being more “fun”, and question whether something you’re paid to do can, or should, be fun.

How about this for an explanation (with apologies to Kent, Mike, Arie et al)?

We are using better ways of developing software.
Through this, we have found that:

Interacting with individuals is more fun than being constrained by processes and tools
Creating working software is more fun than writing comprehensive documentation
Collaborating with customers is more fun than negotiating contracts
Responding to change is more fun than following a plan

That is, while the items on the left are not always fun, they’re certainly a lot more fun than the items on the right!