Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

1.8. Practical Theory

"There is nothing so practical as a good theory"

—Kurt Lewin (1890-1947), psychologist, inventor of action research and change theorist

During the course of this book, we will look at a variety of theories, mostly about learning and change. For a book that tries to have a practical bent, this might seem unusual. In fact, there are two good reasons to look at theories even when we're trying to be practical.

Firstly, theories allow us to consider and examine the world in ways that are otherwise very difficult. By abstracting away much detail and considering a few key factors, they allow us to look at the issue in hand in a new and potentially revealing way. This provides a grounding for conducting learning and change in practice.

Secondly, we all struggle to understand people and events around us. This understanding then informs our own actions. In order to make sense of the world, we all use our own set of theories. Some of these will be explicit and we will know that we're using a theory; other theories will be implicit and unspoken. By looking at different theories we open our minds to different models of the world: if these models make sense to us, they will inform our actions in the future and change the way in which we act.

Studying theories of learning and change should better prepare us for practising learning and change. Hopefully some of the theories given here will change the way you see the world and might prompt you to discard some of the theories ...