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Getting anything started in a group does not work easily. It often tests the patience of someone trying to introduce a change for good. Getting someone out of status quo is a tough one, then there is also a group mindset that someone will change first so wait until it happens. What really works is the one who wants to introduce the change, changes and finds some followers. If there is a big bang approach of getting everyone on board at once, it will be a big disappointment. Peter Senge talks about in his book ‘The fifth discipline’ as one of the laws – ‘The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back‘

We used to screen learning videos in our cafeteria every Friday lunch time at ThoughtWorks, one of those days I happened to watch this video below which reinforced the fact that success of an initiative depends on your followers. Getting the first few followers matters and takes time; the rest will fall in place. Watch this video to find out how one guy leads an entire group to dance but not until he gets two courageous followers. Till the time he got a follower, he was a lone nut dancing.

 

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Building software is always a task of trying to hit a moving target. The complexity keeps growing on every parameter if not managed well. Projects which build softwares that have to talk to each other are often built by different teams under different managements, leaving less scope to find schedule and contract to match for smooth integration. Many times I have observed that there is so much of dependency on each other that the projects look like they are progressing so well until they hit a dead lock on integration.

rocking-horseIn my view such projects are like rocking horses, for a child it gives an illusion that s/he is in control of the horse and its movements but there is no real progress, it is just moving not progressing. The illusion of movement in a project is formed when developers implement the requirements which is neither validated nor integrated but just added to growing source code, followed by an all out big bang effort to integrate and push it to production. The result of rework and last mile dash leaves the teams burnt out and demotivated that there is hardly enough energy to move on to the next work.

Research say that we have two kinds of thinking which I encountered in the book ‘The Pragmatic Programmer’, it says that people who work with the brain (knowledge workers) need to make use of both focussed and diffused modes of thinking which is mentioned as L-mode and R-mode in the book. Procrastination is the key to R-mode as it props up the answers we are looking for, at a moment when we are not thinking about it. It has worked for me very well as I have observed that I get great ideas in shower, while driving, while having coffee staring outside the office window.

Sadly management is trained to look at people furiously typing at their computers for long hours as work and any thinking time saharais deemed as a luxury. This problem gets compounded when management in the guise of agile leaving out all the people aspects behind; which help in looking back, taking stock of situation and plan well but use it solely for micromanagement. People if lost will usually walk in circles, it is a proven fact that people lost in a desert in the night time or an overcast condition without the direction markers will walk in circles, more about it in this link from Nat Geo.

Directionless movement is just a movement for the sake of movement like a rocking horse, there is no real progress.

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Is it easy to get a crash course in football by Pele or Maradona for a week and produce a world cup winning football team?

Answer is NO. Then why do lots of people in the corporate world think of hiring scrum trainers & expert developers to train their team for a week and then expect their team to be undergo a transformation at a magical scale?

Football

German football team made it a point to transform their team and it took them a lots of years before they were able to reach the pinnacle. A quick side by side comparison of what is causing agile transformation to fail.

Vision

Football: Someone was there owning this entire transformation, the German football association spent a lot of time identifying talent in their teens and groomed them.

Office: In the corporate world switching jobs every few years have become common, but there is no passing on of the context, resulting in the new person taking charge, starting from all over again, as well as frustrating existing good performers who have to rebuild the perception.

Infrastructure

Football: Players expecting state of the art training facilities, fitness programs and new shoes are not a luxury, it is a necessity.

Office: Computers have become so cheap compared to the salaries, yet the policy of providing the best tools and good work environment are archaic.

Coach vs Management

Football: Coaches are given their due powers to help the team achieve the goal. It is very easy for anyone to comment on how professionals should play their game, there would be no use adhering to the metrics if the team cannot win. Winning is the only measure for management.

Office: Often coaches are seen as part of the management or management tries to heavily influence coaching which results in a team which will work either for metrics or to please higher ups without the actual result that it had aimed for.

Training

Football: Just the ability to kick the ball does not make a footballer. Training will be introduced to increase physical strength & stamina, better mental wellness, injury prevention, tactics and strategy.  A heavy investment is made in the training facilities.

Office: In the software industry a generation is about 2-3 years. Computer science degrees are nowhere near what is state of the art in the industry. At many places the on boarding process is either very shallow or not up to date with the recent developments, leaving people to learn most of the things hard way. Given too many things to learn and the information overload, this results in inefficient learning and application of knowledge on the job. We need to prepare people to find answers that are not available on Google.

Team composition

Football: Rookies don’t learn by watching greats from the bench, instead they play along with the veterans. Every sports team makes sure to have the right composition with a mix of rookies, emerging players and veterans. That is how they sustain a winning team.

Office: Architects and Leads often do not code or not part of the team every day, this means that most of the time the team just looks up to for advice or waits for reviews. There should be a good mix of people at all experience level so that there are enough people to try new things, enough people who have mastered few things and enough people who challenge change.

Above all – Persistence

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. ~ Calvin Coolidge

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net