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I T MAY SEEM LIKE THE TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES IN THE FIRST PART OF THIS BOOK are enough to help

you build better software. You’ve diagnosed problems that affect your organization, you
have tools that will help you fix those problems, and you have plenty of tips and examples
to help you put them in place. Isn’t that enough?
Unfortunately, it’s not. Building better software is also about changing the way things are
done in your organization, and change makes many people very uncomfortable. Project
managers around the world have tried to implement straightforward improvements to the
way they build software, only to find that they can’t convince the other people in their
organizations to agree to discuss those changes, much less to actually alter the way their
projects are carried out.

It’s very frustrating to see a problem, feel like you have the solution, and not be able to do
anything about it. Luckily, there are some straightforward techniques that make it easier
to get an organization to change how the software is built. By understanding the most
common ways that people respond to change and learning how to convince or reassure
the ones who are resistant to change, it is possible to overcome these obstacles and suc-
cessfully make the changes that your organization needs.

Why Change Fails

A project manager who is trying to get an organization to build better software must make
changes to the way the work is performed. This is easier said than done. Most project
managers are not in a position in which they can simply demand that everyone in the
organization abandon their old ways and adopt new tools and techniques. But even in an
organization where it’s possible to simply issue a memo requiring everyone to change the
way they do their jobs, people will usually be uncomfortable changing so quickly.
The planning and the execution of the change are very important, and there are aspects of
any change under the project manager’s control that can cause it to fail. Not all obstacles
are political: if you introduce a poor practice or tool, or you implement a tool poorly, it
will not go well. When your projects suffer from poor planning, insufficient training, or
simple bad timing, your attempt to change your own project may fail.
But there are problems that are bigger than just your project. Sometimes the biggest obsta-
cles to your projects come from outside of what a project manager typically controls.
Sometimes there are people impacted by your change who will resist it. If you feel that the
change is necessary despite the resistance, you will need to handle it politically.

Most technical people have an aversion to politics. They feel that the only way for one
person to influence another is to first lay out all of the facts; the only logical conclusion
should be obvious. Unfortunately, when you are working with other people, it may take
more than just facts to win them over. Most people who will be persuaded solely by facts
will already agree with you. When you encounter resistance to your ideas, it may be from
someone whose objection may seem irrational to you. This is especially true when you are
trying to make a change that influences someone outside of your project in your organiza-
tion (like a stakeholder or senior manager) who can prevent your change and who does

204 CHAPTER NINE