Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
In the last couple of decades, Agile frameworks have changed the way organisations deliver products and services, bringing a new perspective to the lean focus on maximizing customer value. In theory, this focus ensures that teams build what matters most to those who pay for, use, or depend on a product. But as technology pervades more aspects of daily life, a pressing ethical question emerges: Should teams optimize only for customer value? When the needs and desires of customers conflict with the well-being of employees, communities, or society at large, how should teams respond? And who gets to decide what constitutes ‘value’?
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
I don’t think customer value should automatically take priority when there is a clear negative impact on employees, communities, or the public. Those impacts need to be part of the decision, even if addressing them means changing what the customer originally wanted. For me, this is also why value needs to be defined more broadly than customer satisfaction or business benefit. The consequences of what we deliver matter too.
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1 reply by Stelian ROMAN
Sep 30, 2026 11:50 PM
Stelian ROMAN
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The Agile Enterprise framework, defined in 1991, introduced ethics as the cornerstone of 21st-century delivery. Beyond legal and regulatory requirements, ethical guidelines must always be considered. For example, building an addictive gambling application may be a good project outcome, but an ethical person will leave that organisation. On the flip side, working on a project that delivers a cancer registry that will help cancer research is very rewarding,
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Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Sep 30, 2026 4:36 PM
Replying to Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
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I don’t think customer value should automatically take priority when there is a clear negative impact on employees, communities, or the public. Those impacts need to be part of the decision, even if addressing them means changing what the customer originally wanted. For me, this is also why value needs to be defined more broadly than customer satisfaction or business benefit. The consequences of what we deliver matter too.
The Agile Enterprise framework, defined in 1991, introduced ethics as the cornerstone of 21st-century delivery. Beyond legal and regulatory requirements, ethical guidelines must always be considered. For example, building an addictive gambling application may be a good project outcome, but an ethical person will leave that organisation. On the flip side, working on a project that delivers a cancer registry that will help cancer research is very rewarding, Saving Changes...
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