Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

1.9. Begin with Yourself

The primary objective of this book is to give you, the reader, an understanding of how you can help software development teams improve their ability to learn, allow them to change the way in which they work and adopt a more Agile approach to development. During the course of the book, we will look at various theories of learning and change, we will discuss examples of learning and change and we will suggest some actions that you can take to help teams learn and change.

Naturally, this leads to the following questions: Where do I begin? What do I do first?

The answer is: Begin with yourself. First seek to improve your own learning and understanding of the situation in which you find yourself.

We will return to this theme again and again, because if you can't improve yourself, then you can't improve your team. Conversely, if you can improve yourself, then you're in a better position to help others and act as a role model and mentor.

Rather than wait until you've finished reading this book, I suggest that you start now. As you read the book, think about the ideas and suggestions presented and how they apply to you and your team.

In order to do this, you'll need to take some time to think about this book, your team, your organization and your current environment. You might like to schedule some time during the week when you can do this. You might also like to undertake your thinking with a partner – in which case the thinking becomes a discussion. It isn't ...