Re: Do C-Level managers, and business drivers really need to know about XP?

On Sunday, January 26, 2003, at 10:43:51 PM, Scott Worley <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi all, a slightly diffrent tack of approach on the issue of XP 
> Adoption.

Welcome. We like new angles.

> Do the high level managers in a company need to know about Agile this 
> or XP that?

> In my opinion (I am a C-Level Manager) NO, what they/we want is 
> results if its due to a new process that the dev team or indeed any 
> other team is using, thier team lead/PM should know about it, but 
> above that it is not necessary.  A PM can request resource from 
> higher management and in most cases the justification is of the 
> standard Time/Cost/Resource type. A PM should act as a consultant to 
> the teams they ENABLE and the management they provide a service for.

I'm inclined to agree with you. I think that if XP and Agile deliver what
we think they do, the C-level (I am coming to hate that term) people will
need to understand the impact, because their planning cycles may be able to
change. They may be able to demand more concrete information from their
projects.

The only reason I can see for knowing much more about it is if they wished
to promulgate the ideas further in the organization. Since most of the
top-down installations of XP I've seen have been near-disasters, I'd like
to see it coming from the bottom up instead.

I have the impression that Bill Walton, who lurks here but rarely speaks,
thinks that the C-level folks need to know more, or different things. Bill?
What's your view on this?

> I have worked at various levels in development over the past 10+ 
> years, and in most cases the dev team I have been in, HAVE NOT TOLD 
> the PM what exact process they follow :) including myself.

That seems odd to me. I would think that the PM needs to know what is going
on. Maybe you're envisioning a more hands-off kind of PM than I am.

> Normally the time spent trying to educate people on process, is time 
> we should have been coding, politics are fine when there is time.

I'm coming to agree with that view, since the selling of the process seems
to be so painful to both sides. If people wonder why I'm successful, I'm
willing to tell them what I do.

> As a final note, I am not saying Senior management should not know 
> what is being done process wise, just not in a low level and somewhat 
> evangelistic way (btw: I am very evangelistic about agile process not 
> just in development)

What kinds of agile process are you evangelistic about? Tell us more.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.  -- Picasso


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