Projects, Projects…..

As I start to think about implementing Scrum or some other Agile process into our development world, I get scared of the reaction. Everything I’ve read and listened to on managing change in an organization says you have to pay attention to two groups of people, the top performers and the slackers.

Let’s start with the slackers because they are the least interesting. An agile process where you either contribute or get lost, will bubble up the slackers to the forefront right away. These people will have nothing to say at the daily stand-ups. They will consistently be stuck on the same mundane details, and will eventually feel so overwhelmed they will look elsewhere. While this is good, in a budget crunch where I can’t fill that req, the slackers work might be better then no work at all. I haven’t quite figured out if no developer is better then a developer who’s kind of in the way.

Now, how about the top performers. They are quite often the most invested in existing processes. They are quite often the ones most resistant to change. From my standpoint, I am going to get them involved in defining the new methodology and hopefully get them to become agilists along with me. It’s important to keep the top performers happy and engaged in what is going on with their day to day processes and activities.

Thoughts, my non-readers?