Shortly after starting a position, I attended my boss’s first off-site staff meeting at a remote office. My new peers, boss and I were in the conference room together. One of my peers could not attend and was connected with me via IM.
We did a round of introductions. During this time, I mentioned that as part of my new role, I would also be doing an agile transformation in how the products in my new organization would be developed. My boss responded with, “You’re going to do what?” I was taken aback a bit and responded to my boss that as we had discussed during our multiple interview discussions, I wanted to do an agile transformation. A peer flashed up the Agile Manifesto on the projector screen. My boss pointed to the screen and asked, “You’re going to do that?”
My remote peer’s IM popped up on my laptop in front of me, “Stop now. You’re getting him upset. It’s best you don’t.” I responded to my boss with an apologetic claim of misunderstanding. My goal was to deliver world-class products. I would do this consistent with the organization’s best practices. My boss accepted this. He moved to the next agenda item. I knew that damage to my credibility had been done.
Back home at the building where my boss and I worked, my boss came into my office early in the morning. He sat down. He needed to talk about this agile thing since I had never mentioned this to him during the interviewing process. I tried to explain that I had. I could tell from his reaction that either I had not or he had not understood what I had said during our discussions. His dejected response was that maybe he had mishired. Defeated, I accepted responsibility for the misunderstanding and would resign immediately due to my miscommunication of my intentions.
I asked for one favor before I resigned. I asked him if he would read Mary and Tom Poppendieck’s book, Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit. I had found Mary and Tom’s work profound in outlining core agile principles. My boss readily agreed. He left my office with the book.
To his credit, he returned to my office an hour later. His finger pointing to Tool 8: The Last Responsible Moment. He claimed that he agreed with the Last Responsible Moment principle and all what he had read so far. He left my office. I was speechless and encouraged. I was grateful and amazed by his immediate reading of Mary and Tom’s book.
Another hour later, he returned again. His finger pointing to Tool 19: Refactoring. He was shaking his head. He claimed he had always agreed with this. He knew that he should do it but never did it in his past projects. He left my office reading as he walked. My hopes were rising that my resignation would not be needed.
Another hour later, he returned yet again. He tossed the book on my desk. He claimed, if this is what I intended to do, then I have his support. He said he would remain skeptical. I would have to prove that this agile stuff does work.
I set out on my mission to bring about a state-of-the-art agile development organization by embracing my new organization where they were and bringing about the understanding of agile principles. I used Mary and Tom’s book as my starting point with every team I met. We ensured everything built was based on these principles. As other organizations saw our results and invited us to explain, I used Mary and Tom’s book as the baseline. I encouraged them to read it before anything else.
Years later as I was leaving that company, my boss told the whole organization as he expressed his appreciation for my contributions, that I demonstrated how agile really can work and helped the organization understand those principles by embodying them in everything we did. I responded by thanking my boss for entrusting us all to change and deliver results consistent with the agile principles.
Prior to walking into my next job, I made it very clear in the hiring process that I was all about agile transformations. I immediately asked my new boss and subordinates to read Mary and Tom’s book. My new boss read the book during a trip to the beach. She internalized the principles quickly. She and I worked on multiple successful agile transformations while at that company. I started every transition with Mary and Tom’s book.
Mary and Tom explain the right, complete list of agile principles of which Scrum and Scrum@Scale are built upon. Their work is extremely approachable and referenceable. That is why their book is first on my blog reading list.
The companies that I’ve worked for have purchased 100s of copies of their book. I doubt that even with those book sales, I have returned the favor of what their published work has done for my teams and me.
Mary and Tom, thank you for your inspiring and, in my case, job-saving work!
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