I have been working as a software consultant for more than 11 years. Because of that I am an eager supporter of lean principles and agile methods.
Still most of my writing efforts are focused on the paper, but I did some reflections on process improvement that I would like to share.
Process improvement is not about changing the process. It is all about changing people. Three things are needed to implement a change, and all three of them are needed.
- awareness – that a change is needed. If the awareness that something needs to change is missing, nothing will happen.
- will – to carry out the change. Same here, if the will to change is missing, nothing happens.
- action – if the awareness and the will is there all it takes is action, but it is still needed.
I.e. it is not enough to hand over some new nice process documents and wishing the customer good luck. It all starts with creating awareness to change the process and then continues to create motivation and will to change the process, within the people of the organization from management down to the developer team. This is done with coaching and mentoring on site in projects with the customer.
Comments are welcome…
My experience is also that when changing processes it is always a good idea to start with small steps. This to make people used to changes and also they see the benefits of changes. If one tries to change everything at once in one giant leap it often fails.
Left by Bengt Johansson on May 31st, 2006