Topic: Mindset and culture
...as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld, US Defense Department Briefing, February 12, 2002
When I was involved in a bottom-up agile initiative at a previous employer, I was surprised when we were able to get every individual we asked for from the IT department. Since these were the best of the best, I didn't expect their managers to let them get away. They were the heroes who prevented projects from failing in spite of a broken process. It turned out that these individuals were the ones who constantly asked questions about value and waste, and who circumvented the formal process to get things done. Their managers were happy to let them go because they were irritants. The managers didn't understand the contribution these heroes actually made to the enterprise.
On my current assignment, some of the client personnel lament the inefficiencies in their company's formal software development process. As we ramp up agile teams in this environment, we've found that project managers know very well who their heroes are, and they won't release them to join the new agile teams.
In both cases, the company had a broken process. They didn't know how to deliver valuable software effectively. The difference is in what the managers knew they didn't know. At the first company, project managers were happy to release their heroes because they didn't know they didn't know how to deliver. At the second company, project managers jealously guard their heroes because they know they don't know how to deliver. The second company may seem dysfunctional, but in reality they are miles ahead of the first company.
