Asking why, not just how

Agile developers seek to understand the "why" behind features, not just how to implement them. By comprehending the purpose, they can suggest better solutions and make smarter technical decisions. This isn't about challenging decisions but gaining context to deliver better value. For example, when asked to add a date picker to a form, an agile developer might ask, "Why do we need this specific date information?" They may discover users need to schedule future deliveries, which might lead to suggesting a more useful calendar view showing available delivery slots instead of a generic date picker.

Effective developers ask focused questions:

• "What problem does this solve?"
• "How does this benefit users?"
• "How will we measure success?"

These questions reveal hidden assumptions and lead to more thoughtful solutions. When a developer understands that a requested notification feature aims to reduce missed appointments, they might propose an SMS reminder system that achieves better results than the originally requested email notification.