Transparency is an important cornerstone of agile methods. However, transparency purely for the sake of transparency – or even worse – to facilitate control or to alleviate irrational management fears, only creates pointless overhead.
No user story has ever been completed faster by being split into sub tasks. No sprint goal has ever been completed by a burndown chart. No progress has ever been made by a progress report.
The purpose of these tools and of transparency in general is to foster team work and to discover areas of improvement for the team. Improvements in performance are achieved not by putting people under a microscope but by creating an ideal work environment for them and by allowing them to focus on their tasks.
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