Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

6.3. Change is What IT People Do to Other People

IT departments and projects often bring change to other people whether they want it or not. This may be the result of a direct management decision ('Introduce a new accounts system'), it may be the result of IT policies ('Dump Windows, go Linux') or it may be part of a policy to identify and spread incremental improvements.

Whatever the reason for the change, when the IT systems change, users have to change too. For technical people, whether they are business analysts, developers or operations staff, this is a technical change and often the end of their work. However, for the users it is the start of the change. Unfortunately, on the whole IT people don't think about the changes that they introduce to others. This is partly a result of our training, which focuses on technology rather than change management.^[]

^[] See Cameron and Green (2005).

The need for change may come from an external force facing the organization or from an internal decision to exploit some opportunity. Either way, those on the receiving end see little of these forces until they're confronted with the new technology. Such technology is the means by which change is forced upon people.

All too often, software developers and other IT professionals fail to recognize that they're involved in creating change. Consequently, IT staff introducing changes can look like shock troops forcing change on unwilling employees.

Successful software developments may still fail upon ...