“Nothing is permanent but change’ – Heraclitus
In business, we all know if you’re standing still, you’re falling behind. We also know that asking people to change their ways is hard – especially in enterprise software delivery. Resistance from some of your best teams can be fierce, and the fallout can directly impact the quality of your products.
These are teams, from product to PMO to development to testing and beyond, who have toiled away to create a unique process that works perfectly for their specific team. It can be perilous for an “outsider” (such as a CIO) to ask them to alter their day-to-day approach to work – you risk disrupting your value stream and poisoning the well of innovation.
At the same time, your organization can’t stagnate; continuous improvement is always the name of the game, and new ideas and technology are critical for survival and prosperity. Which begs the question:
Just how do you introduce wider transformational initiatives (Agile, DevOps, SAFe, Nexus etc.) without upsetting your process-proud teams? How do you accommodate all these vital different parts? How to do you move forward without leaving key people behind and/or dragging along resentful practitioners?
There is a solution, and it’s not forcing all teams into one system – it’s about all about creating a modular infrastructure that enables and actively encourages change and experimentation.
You can read more on how to accommodate your innovation-driving teams in my article for DevOps.com here: https://devops.com/accommodating-different-processes-enterprise-software-delivery/
