Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

Chapter 9. Making Change Happen

"learning is better, because it is more intensive, than teaching; the more that is taught the less can be learned"

—Josef Albers,^[] 1888-1976, artist

^[] Quoted in Borchardt-Hume (2006).

The underlying idea for most of this book is that learning leads to change. By learning something, we create a force for change because we want to use our learning, so we change because we have learnt.

In the last few chapters we have discussed types of change and models for understanding them. This chapter focuses on what you can do to bring about change in a more practical way and expands on things you can do to bring about change. Some are simple and low cost, such as listening to people.

This isn't the last word on what you can do to create change. Quite the opposite. This is an introduction to what you can do – indeed, this chapter may contain too many ideas to take in one go. Other authors have covered this subject in much more depth and offer more advice (see the Further Reading section).

Still, no matter how many books you read and techniques you hear about, you still have to do it. You have to move from learning about change to acting on it. Only you can do this.

Every individual is unique and every organization is unique. The advice given by this book and others isn't tailor made for you or your organization.

Only you can decide what applies and what's useful. You must find your own route to change for you and your organization.