Embrace Pain
As a proponent of Agile development methods I am supposed to recognize that change is inevitable and to therefore embrace it. In the context of software development this idea is supposed to free the developer and the customer from a rigid, signed off requirements document and allow them to alter their plans as the system evolves.
Change is also inevitable organizationally. The old story about three envelopes appears to drive every “big stupid” company I’ve had the pleasure of working for. In many cases the only thing that changes is who your boss’s boss is. You still work at the same desk, you still work with the same people, you probably work on the same project.
Regardless of how change happens or when it happens, pain is change’s constant companion. Most likely something isn’t going right (or at least as well as it should) and someone in the organization decides that things must change to address the issue (pain). In my early days of trying to implement Agile Methodologies across the company we would often discuss that unless a group felt they had a problem, they would be resistant to change. That is, if they felt no pain, they had no motivation to change.
Now that was a long winded way to get to the point of this post. Somewhere in your organization someone feels pain and now here comes the change (envelope number 2). The question is…do you like your pain slow, or do you like it quick? Should the new process / organization be implemented as a rapid paradigm shift or as a series of small incremental steps?
I have lived through paradigm shifts and am currently experiencing a slow change. I am finding that I would just as soon have someone rip the band-aid (plaster?) off already. Because experiencing each incremental pain, knowing that there is more yet to come is killing me. Be done with it already. Let’s get to the next steady state quickly. Let people adjust (or not) to the new reality and move on.
What do you think?
November 1st, 2007 at 7:44 am
“You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead” Laurel and Hardy, always makes me chuckle anyways.
Ahhhh change, it will only be painful if the change is impacting on something you believe in or care about. Be like the buddhists and only worry/care about those things that you can effect. But yes I prefer short sharp shocks than drawn out torture. I hate the dentist, premeditated pain is not a good thing, but then I’ve had hurley sticks broken across my legs in the middle of a game and got up and trotted away (well stumbled).
November 4th, 2007 at 7:10 am
What you fail to realise, my Satanic looking friend, is that you have been having the plaster removed all in one go! Its your metaphor that is all broken. You don’t have a sticking plaster for removal - you are at a waxing salon. You have just had a couple of strips removed!
I have seen a lot of these kinds of re-structures in my time here. Normally we are able to ride them out because, as you say, it seems mostly to benefit the names jostling around the top table. We were always able to rely on the mantra that the people taking the credit change but the customer and the work remained constant.
One thing that was annoying but not insuperable was that these reorgs tended to shred the effective networks. Typically organisational changes tended to serve upward communication. It was the myriad of personal networks assembled over time operated by individuals that achieved the actual work.
What I believe I am witnessing are a couple of things that may well go beyond this irritation.
There is a dismantling of a culture. The crew is going to be split apart, put back together and have all these bits left over. It will, on the face of it work. But I have a feeling that those bits left over and stuffed in a jar are misunderstood and overlooked and their absence will lead to a separation of a carefully assembled team.
The other thing I think I am witnessing is the emergence of tiers between the work and the end customer. Such stratification gives opportunity for leaking of tacit knowledge, and insertion of strata that are not necessarily needed. You will identify this by an inflation of job title adjectives and a restricted flow of information as individuals attempt to apply control. One thing is certain. A long logistical and organisational tail leads to a poor delivery.
But hey, we can call it Agile and everything will be better. Got any more metaphors I can twist beyond recognition?
Wuuusaaah
July 6th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I read similar article also named Embrace Pain, and it was completely different. Personally, I agree with you more, because this article makes a little bit more sense for me