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

On Sunday, February 9, 2003, at 12:58:43 AM, [email protected] wrote:

> you asked

> What are the top few changes that, in your view, are necessary at the
> C-level to support an XP project? What changes are necessary to support
> two, three, ..., N such projects?

> I do not see any tangible support required in most projects, but this
> maybe due to my view of empowering employees to do what is needed when
> needed.

Yes -- although empowering employees to do what is needed when needed is in
fact a very high level of support.

It may be just my own personality defects coming out, but I believe that
command-and-control organizations are allergic to agile methods, because
they are allergic to empowerment. In my consulting, I would say that truly
empowering managers are in a very small minority, surrounded on one side by
command and control managers, and on the other by hands off then fire
people managers.

Agile methods can succeed in the latter type of organization, although
these outfits, for some reason, tend to reward projects that succeed after
great travail more than they do projects that go smoothly. It's a
puzzlement.

> For example if I have a Project Coordinator <snip>

> </snip> I will try to eductae on better ways however,

What are your favorite ways of doing this?

> but in my experience once a PC has seen the results of another team they
> will talk and learn, as is apparrent from these lists also.

The best will. There seems to be a subcategory who try to destroy the
competition rather than cooperate and learn. Do you encounter this
behavior at all frequently? How do you deal with it?

> If the PC fails, I will ask why they think so and offer constructive
> assistance and guidance, that is my job as a manager/enabler. If I can
> help I will, this does not mean I do thier work it just means I give
> pointers and getthem involved with more successful projects.

Do you typically let them run all the way to failure, or do you intervene
before they go off the cliff? If the latter, what measures do you use to
identify the need to go in -- and to open their mind to the fact that they
are failing before it is too late?

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
= = The Receptive is the most devoted of all things in the world.
= = The expression of its nature is invariably the simple,
= = in order to master the obstructive.


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