The Mindset

Here’s a pop-quiz: what do [take a long breath] Agile, Peer Reviews, JUnit, Pair Programming, SCRUM, velocity charts, burn-down charts, Bugzilla, Subversion, lint, ClearCase®, RequisitePro®, ClearQuest®, RUP, UML, MDA, TDD, BDD, XP, ISO, CMM, and (my personal all-time favorite) Refactoring have in common?

OK now, let’s see. If you found it easy to come up with an answer regarding a subset of this list, chances are that you are either an Agilist or, what many people in our industry call nowadays, a “traditionalist”. But that was not the question. The question was what all of these terms have in common.

The answer to this question is that each and every item on that list carry a promise – a promise for better software development, and eventually better software products. Each and every one of these methodologies, practices, tools, and standards is being marketed as a solution (and sometimes the solution) for the problems our industry is facing. Maybe the creators of these tools, practices, and methodologies, didn’t mean to market them as such. But the fact is, that most of us tend to perceive them as “just what we need” to improve quality, increase productivity, and reduce costs.

Believe me, I’ve used many of these methodologies, practices, tools, and standards at one point or another. Each of them is good in a certain context. Each of them can indeed spice the way we work and the product we create. But none of them can fulfill the promise. Not as-is.

No tool, methodology, practice, or standard, can fundamentally change the quality of our work. I have seen organizations spending literally millions of dollars on integrating tools (even open-source tools) in their development environment. About the same amount of money is often spent on conferences, lectures, and consulting sessions, in a never-ending race to catch-up the latest methodologies and practices. You know what? That might be perfectly reasonable, but that’s the easy thing to do. And as life often teaches us, a change — a real change — never comes easy.

To do a good job — to create a good product on time and on budget — you need a team of true professionals. And professionalism cannot be grown artificially. Wishing that tools, practices, and methodologies, will nurture professionalism is like saying that in order to grow fruits you need fertilizer. Of course, fertilizer can help, but no fruit has ever emerged out of a pile of manure.

Fruit grows on trees. We take it for granted, but trees are designed to enable just that. It all begins deep in the ground with the tree’s roots. No tree can live without roots. The roots nurture the tree — feed it to enable growth. Similarly, growing professionals and creating quality products require organizational commitment. All the standards, the tools, and the methodologies in the world will not change that. Adopting a new methodology without true commitment to quality and professionalism is like manuring a tree without roots.

The roots alone are also not enough. Without a trunk and branches, the roots will not be able to nurture the fruit. For organizational commitment to be translated into action, a culture of mentoring, sharing, and open communication is required. These are the branches on which people, and therefore the organization, grow as professionals. Just as the trunk of the tree thickens, the supporting organizational culture will be strengthened as commitment is more rooted.

Fruits will grow naturally when the roots and the branches are an organic part of your organization.

Tools, methodologies, and practices, all have their place. But before you invest your money and your energy in obtaining the latest technology or complying with the latest standard, take some time to work on what really matters: achieving true commitment and building a network to support professional growth.

There isn’t any other way. Really, there isn’t.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Organizational Culture, Management, Change, Mentoring, Improvement, Professionalism, Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.