Posts Tagged fear

Quite some time ago, I read Jaibeer Malik’s excellent writeup on the right kind of people for staffing you agile project. I totally agree with his analysis that you need people that are “willing to make it happen”.

The right kind of people for your project have another trait in common: they are not afraid. What is there to be afraid of?

• Change It is in the nature of people to prefer it when things stay the same. Yet, change is the lifeblood of agile processes: we changed to get agile, we update our own process, and just when you think we figured it out, we change again. Better get used to it.
• Failure As John Holt wrote in Celebrate your mistakes, “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not taking risks, and that means you’re not going anywhere. The key is to make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more changes to learn and win.” Sure, failing is no fun, but fearing it will freeze you, making sure you can never make things happen.
• Visibility Tying into failure, visibility is about showing what you do. People tend to be very protective about “their job”, which they know bloody well how to do, thank you very much. Still, the open communication in an agile project forces us all to show what we’re doing, every minute we’re working on the project. I think it’s inexcusable to say “Well, I’m working on it now, so just come back tomorrow, and I’ll show you then”. Just show me now, I understand that not everything is OK yet; I would be surprised if it was OK, and you were still spending time on it.

The Agile Manifesto contains the same elements of collaboration, change and interaction. These can, indeed, be kind of intimidating when you are used to signing of work to be done, working under someone else’s responsibility, and consider yourself an expert. Then again, remember that we’re in this together, as a a team. Stop being afraid, and start making things happen!