Agile Metamorphosis

I read the following card from a card deck my wife has, called Happiness is Living in the Moment by Barbara Ann Kipfer (a deck of 52 inspirational cards).

When I think about it, that's what I try to do with the teams and team members I work with. I'm asking them to do something different, something foreign to them. Do they understand? Are they just following instructions? Is it becoming part of them? Do they understand how things are shifting?

With new teams I ask them to start by performing some specific ceremonies/practices. I'm not asking to change everything, just begin to behave differently. This is what most coaches do. Depending on the team and the style we are using, we may include visioning, roadmapping, release planning, iteration planning, daily stand ups, demos, retrospectives, technical practices, ... The usually suspects. We kickstart new teams with facilitated workshops to get them going on the right path. Making sure they have a plan beyond a single iteration, leaning on the concept of progressive elaboration, so they don't spend too much time on details that are far off in the future. Often I wonder when or if they'll understand how things can be different. Will they view software development differently after this project?

I had a team about 2 years ago that had the problem of part of the team embracing the change, wanting to learn by trying new methods and the other part of the team being stuck in their old ways. In fact, when one of the stuck-in-their-old-ways leads was out the early adopters took charge. That all worked briefly until the laggard lead came back and ignored all the progress the early adopters had achieved. Part of the team got it, part didn't and wasn't interested in giving it a go. I tried to teach them new behaviors that would lead to understanding and transformation. Not so much for this team. So the card is right. Half the team got it and tried the new behaviors - things like stand-ups, writing user stories, ... They began to see how things could be different, they began to understand the transformation. The team didn't really run an agile project, but they still did a reasonable job of meeting their overall goals. Some of the team members began to have a new view of the how software development could be different and better. 

Transform what you do and you'll see the world differently. Take a chance, listen to your coach, try what you've read, who knows what could happen.

 I think I'll pull the next card in the deck to see if it applies.