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

On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 4:46:23 PM, Steve Ropa wrote:

> Several of the folks on the team have started taking more of their lives into their own hands.  I am hoping
> that the fact that they end up getting the work they sign up for, thus the more interesting work, will start
> to get noticed and more people will start to follow suit.

Perhaps you might: Do good things for them. Treat them well. Promote them.
Let it be known that they are pleasing you.

> One other observation a co-worker made:  This is the first job out of school for most of these folks, and
> maybe they just don't feel ready to make these decisions for themselves.  I don't know whether i believe that
> or not...

Perhaps you might sit with them in a signup meeting and say things like
"John, which of these tasks do you feel most able to do? Which do you feel
least able to do? Which seems most interesting? Which seems most boring?
Which one do you wish I would assign you to? Which one do you hope I don't
assign you to?"


I've told this story before, and I shall tell it again. Right now:

I had an employee who was quite capable. She didn't like to make decisions
and always wanted me to make them. Since I like making decisions, this went
on quite a while before I noticed that I was messing up. Then I undertook a
new approach.

She would come in and tell me about some decision. "Should we do A, or B,"
she would ask? I'd ask her some questions about A and B. Then I'd say in a
puzzled sort of tone, "What do you think we ought to do?" She'd invariably
reply with a choice, scarcely with a pause. I'd say, "Let's do that." She'd
say OK and go away.

After about six months of this, she came in and asked whether we should do
P or Q. I said, "For the last six months, every time you've come in to ask
me what to do, we've talked about it and then I've asked you what you
thought we should do. Whatever you said, I told you to do that. Let's
eliminate the middleman. You decide." She thought about it, agreed that it
was happening, and was enlightened.

Even I get one right once in a while.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
The practices are not the knowing: they are a path to the knowing.


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