Transform at the speed of the team.

Software development is not rocket science; it is a branch of engineering, but it is not rocket science.  I say that because rocker science depends on the laws of chemistry and physics, which have not changed since the Big Bang.  Software development is changing daily.  Javascript libraries are constantly being updated and going in and out of fashion.  Versions of PHP change and open source code are in constant flux.  Finally, software development depends on the fickle demands of consumers who use it.  The level of chaos and change is staggering.  It is why software development is such a challenging profession.  As a scrum master and coach, you must understand those challenges and guide development teams.

One of my favorite pieces of journalism is Bloomberg’s weighty essay entitled “What is Code?” It discusses the person in the taupe blazer and the frustrations of software developers.  It also does a great job of discussing the headaches the executives who manage software developers face.  The essay perfectly captures how smart people struggle daily to get dumb machines to act intelligently.

The world of software has tremendous power, but that power belongs to a small subset of the world population.  I calculated that less than .05% of the global population of 7.4 billion could maintain software and computer networks.  Many of these individuals work in the quiet recesses of government and business keeping things running.  They go home to families and friends. They pay bills and try to live their lives as best they can.

Computer professionals receive significant compensation because of the laws of supply and demand, but the compensation comes with a trade-off.  The trade-off is long hours of uncompensated overtime, and business leaders expect them to perform magic.  It creates conditions that lead to poor quality and burnout.  I have experienced this situation as a developer and as a manager.  As a customer, I have encountered numerous situations where fatigue, complexity, and unrealistic expectations have combined into a poor product.  The history of the internet contains plenty of companies that had a few pixels and an unhealthy dose of hype.

Technology professionals have lived in that world since the early 1990s, and you can excuse them for being suspicious of new approaches to doing things.  For every Amazon.com, there are hundreds of companies like Pets.com.  So, bringing ideas like Test Driven Development, S.O.L.I.D. programming, and Agile will face resistance.  As a scrum master or coach, I recommend you begin slowly introducing concepts and letting people test an idea to get comfortable with them.  It also helps if you understand and recognize the pressures the team faces.  Are they distracted by requests that are urgent but not important?  Do you have a healthy cadre of product owners, or is the role being performed by a manager?  Finally, are they working with a brittle technology stack? Answering those questions will determine how fast you can go during your agile transformation.

Software development is not rocket science.  It is a challenging field prone to error and burn-out.  Only by paying attention to the challenges each software development team faces can they be coached into an agile way of doing things.