Changing the thinking and Characteristics of a hospitable iterative culture

Changing the thinking

In the style of the classic “chicken or egg first” question, one might ask “Which should come first, culture change or the adoption of iterative development?” Some one said “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of acting; we act ourselves into a new way of thinking.”

“Culture is not something one can manipulate easily. Attempts to grab it and twist it into a new shape never work because it can’t be grabbed. Culture changes only after you have successfully altered people’s actions, after the new behavior produces some group benefit for a period of time, and after people see the connection between the new actions and performance improvement.”

Characteristics of a hospitable iterative culture

Is there an ideal cultural profile for iterative development? This question will only be answered definitively after more research; however, it is safe to assert that a balanced culture is important. Regardless of the exact cultural profile, there are ways to combat dysfunctional cultural elements. The following list describes the features of the culture and environment that our organization needs to build if we hope to adopt iterative development

➢        High trust. Customers, stakeholders, and the software team all believe they are working toward the same objective.

➢        Open and collaborative. Risks are openly discussed in a realistic manner.

We value coaching and building a facilitating leaders.

➢        Passion for problem solving. The team actively looks for root causes and engages in creative problem solving. We don’t just build or deploy a solution because somebody said to; we truly understand the correlation between the solution and the problem.

➢        Curiosity is encouraged. Question everything, understand the assumptions.

➢        Customer results driven. What matters is that customers receive the results they need, not just what was documented as a requirement.

➢        Team members are empowered and accountable. Project teams are given the authority to make things happen as opposed to having their hands tied by dozens of oversight committees, functional management teams, and process cops.

➢        Organizational politics are spurned. The overriding value is that we share goals tied to delivering value to our customer. We care far less about who gets credit or who will be promoted after the successful completion of the project.

➢        Execution oriented. A preference for getting things accomplished — not simply stepping through a sequence of activities — is evident.

Many attempted adoptions of iterative development fail because the advocates do not adequately prepare to face the cultural issues that characterize the organization. You can overcome these challenges to iterative development by actively assessing, then understanding, the culture prior to the transition. Adopting process change through execu-tion is critical to making the changes real and apparent to the key stakeholder. Changing hearts and minds is best done by changing behavior — by implementing real projects with the help of experienced practitioners of iterative development. Culture change does not come from platitudes and slogans, but from creating new success stories that become the norm.