Succeeding with Agile

Saboteurs

It can be easy to mistake a saboteur for a skeptic—after all, some amount of uncertainty about any change can be a good thing. I made the mistake of confusing a saboteur with a skeptic while teaching a class at a search engine company. Elena, a participant in the class, was asking a lot of good, challenging questions. I didn’t know her role in the organization, but because many class participants were deferential to her, I figured she was important in one sense or another, and so I spent a lot of time answering her questions. If I was right and she was an opinion leader, and if I could convert her by overcoming her objections one by one, I knew that would be a big step forward for this company.

At the end of the day, I met with the ...