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This may seem manipulative (although that’s not necessarily a bad thing). But it doesn’t
have to be. A project manager can help the whole team take credit for changes as a way to
motivate them and help them move forward. This is especially useful when combined
with being positive about the work that’s already been done. A project manager might say
something like, “Folks, we’ve done a great job with these first five work items. I’m very
proud of what you’ve done. But I’m convinced these next three are different in nature
from those five and we need to approach them differently than we have in the past. Here’s
how....” It doesn’t matter that the proposed change is a tool or technique from a book; it
can still be pitched as a change that builds on the work the team has already done.

Make the changes seem straightforward
When someone feels that a tool or technique is “too theoretical,” what he is really saying
is that he’s never heard of it before, doesn’t fully understand it, and can’t immediately
imagine an actual situation in which it would work. He typically talks about the “real
world,” and he may feel like you don’t necessarily live in that world, if you’re proposing a
change that has not been directly borne out by his experience.
Be careful in this situation. Consider someone who has been in the industry for a long
time, but has not come into contact with these ideas before. It’s likely that he has seen
countless projects fail, and has come to grips with—and possibly built his career around—
the idea that a lot of projects simply go wrong. By telling him that there is a straightfor-
ward way to fix this problem, you are challenging a fundamental assumption in his career.
He will rightfully take that personally, and you must take his feelings into account.

If this person is senior to you in your organization, this also becomes an issue of credibil-
ity. If you put yourself in the position where you are questioning the experience of some-
one senior to you, he will want to know where your credibility comes from. It’s a mistake
to say that your credibility comes from doing research; a better approach is to look for cor-
roboration from within your organization and your projects to prove that your ideas are
valid. The best way to handle this situation is to build consensus among your peers. It’s
much easier to have this conversation with a senior manager when your credibility is
already validated by the people around you, and when it’s clear that the organization’s

culture is ready for the change.
Another way to approach this situation is to pitch the changes you want to implement as
technical tools, rather than as core software engineering concepts. Most people who have
been in the field for a long time are used to routinely applying new technical tools that
have never been tested in the organization. This is also a good way to gain consensus
among the programming team for your ideas.

Build support from the team
If you can bring the programming team on board, you have a much better chance of con-
vincing the rest of the organization to follow. In most organizations, people who do not
have technical skills often defer to the programmers any time there is a disagreement. If the

UNDERSTANDING CHANGE 217