Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

12.2. Bottom-up over Top-down

This book has been mainly about bottom-up change. The kind of change that happens when the people who do the work set about changing the way in which they do what they do. Too many people think of change in terms of top-down change, the kind of change that happens to us.

Sometimes top-down change is needed. Perhaps companies need to restructure and people need to be told what to do. Sometimes solving problems requires changing the organogram: new people need to be hired and others need to be fired; new departments need to be created and others merged or closed.

But the need for top-down change is far less than we think. Waiting for top-down change to happen can be an excuse for not changing ourselves and taking action now. Waiting for someone else to fix things excuses you from acting yourself. This book has been about taking action yourself and creating change, wherever you are in the organization.

This also means working with the resources that you have available now. Rather than waiting for money to become available, or for new people to join the company, or for management to make a decision, look instead to the resources that you have available right now. Imagination and careful thinking will allow you to start making changes immediately.

You might not be able to solve all your problems with your current resources in a bottom-up fashion, but you can make a start and solve some. Most probably, you can do far more than you initially imagine. When ...