Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

Chapter 6. Information Technology – the Bringer of Change

"Today's problems come from yesterday's "solutions"."

—Peter Senge (1990)

Information technology often seems to run on its own change schedule. New CPUs and bigger disks arrive on regular schedule, new languages and operating systems emerge and web sites doing novel things tend to explode into public view. The new and improved technology creates shock waves, resulting in change throughout society and business.

But within business, new technology doesn't just appear. New technology is used by businesses to achieve some objective. Businesses set objectives in order to create change: there's little point in setting an objective that doesn't require change. Technology is simply the means of transmitting and enabling that change. Technology is not the end in itself but, rather, a means to an end.

Technology can be both the instigator of change and the tool of change. It can also be a block to change; and examples aren't hard to find:

• Legacy applications that are hard to modify prevent changes.

• Intra-company cooperation and even company mergers can be blocked by different systems and data formats.

• The cost of supporting and servicing dated systems and software can absorb cash and prevent investment in new IT capabilities for new initiatives.

Software development can be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it can be used to introduce change directly and it can bring about learning. However, it can also hinder change and prevent ...