Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

12.3. Begin with Yourself

Creating change starts with yourself: your outlook, your perspective, your approach. You're always empowered to change yourself. Rather than expecting others to do things differently or make change happen, start with yourself:

• Maybe you need to know more about some aspect of this book. Look at the Further Reading section and follow the references mentioned. Then consider what you can do differently.

• Maybe you need to change some aspect of your behaviour. Perhaps you can set a good example to the team, or perhaps you can experiment with a different way of doing things.

• Ask others how you could improve. What do others think that you could do better?

• Maybe you can pick one of the specific methods discussed here and put it into practice: keep your own diary, start a book study group, listen to people.

• If you don't know what needs doing, then seek out someone who does: your manager, your manager's manager, an expert in the field, an outside consultant, or just the people who you work with every day.

• Understand what's going on around you: watch and listen to what's happening in your organization and try to understand. Avoid cynicism when interpreting events. Instead, prefer the principle of Occam's razor: look for the simplest explanation possible.

Over time, you can expand your activities: you'll gain confidence in yourself and others will gain confidence in you.

12.3.1. Warnings

However, this advice doesn't come without warnings.

Changing yourself might not be ...