Applied Software Project Management

How to Make Change Succeed

Progress comes not just from making changes, but from making smart changes. However, it is often difficult to tell the difference—and no organization should be entirely comfortable with change. It's often difficult to tell the difference between a real, substantive change for the better and a management fad that will cost time and effort, but yield little or no reward. Using the techniques in this section can help you demonstrate to the people in your organization that the practices you want to implement are appropriate, and help you to get your proposed changes accepted by the project team and the organization's managers.

However, while these techniques are useful and proven, they are not cure-alls. It's possible to run across organizational problems or roadblocks that are beyond your ability to fix (for example, there may not be enough money to hire a test team). The Achilles' heel of the approach to improving organizations that's described in the first part of this book is that there are people who will resist change for irrational and emotional reasons, and, if they have more power than you in your organization, you simply may not be able to make the changes that your projects need.

You can't stop people from being averse to change, and you can't always stop them from shooting down your ideas. Even if your ideas make perfect sense, you may still be unable to implement them simply because there is someone above you in your organization who feels uncomfortable ...