The software development company at which I work is in desperate need of process improvement but most of senior management seems extremely reluctant to change in any way. It started years ago as a very small company with a handful of developers. They could be quite reactive and responsive because of their size. But in recent years, they’ve grown quickly, to over 30 developers and more work than twice that many could reasonably handle.
Several of the project managers here are trying to transition to some “industry standard” “best practices” type of stuff, like actually defining a development process flow, documenting things like requirements, having a change control process, and setting realistic milestone dates. But we’re meeting a lot of resistance even just meeting to discuss this stuff, let alone put it in place.
Many of the high level guys have been here for two decades, and don’t know how things are done now in the “real world”. Despite the problems obvious to anyone with an eye or two and a few brain cells, they refuse to step back and let the PMs “show them the light” even though we know we could make significant improvements. Their attitude seems to be, “we’re too busy to worry about improvement” or “we don’t have time for all this ‘process’ stuff.”
So, does anyone have any advice on how to get management to understand why we need to do what we need to do? I hate to think our efforts are fruitless, and don’t know how long I can continue without at least seeing some willingness to do things better.
Thanks in advance…
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Michael WoodProject Manager / Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Guru| Independent ContractorGig Harbor, Wa, United States
I am guessing that the company is doing well despite itself. What you appear to be experiencing isn't resistance but a lack of pain which is what drives change. If the owners and management are not feeling any pain you are likely fighting a losing battle.
What objectives have been set that aren't being achieved (Company Level)? Where does the company want to be in 3 to 5 years in terms of profitablity, growth, customer base, etc.? What are the issues in the current environment that would inhibit or prevent the company from achieving its goals?
Until a measurable, quantifiable and compelling reasons to change are established in context to the company's aspiration change won't happen. At least that is my experience. Saving Changes...
George JucanManaging Partner| Organizational Perfomance Enablers NetworkWoodbridge, Ontario, Canada
Extending Michael’s comment, the executive’s desire for change must come from within, not from outside. Few people will proactively change something that works to be better positioned in the future. Most will wait until the bottom-line shows that the current status threatens the very existence of the company.
From my experience instilling the desire to change is a long and laborious process. If you go to the executives with a straightforward “Let me tell you about process improvement” they will feel threatened, both by you (“Is this guy saying he can do my job better?”) and by unknown waters. This will generate resistance, and in extreme situations might even affect you negatively.
Far from me telling you that you should do nothing to keep your job. That’s what they do, and it’s usually slowly sinking the ship. I’m saying to take a persuasive approach, feeding them drops of change instead of spoonfuls. Use every chance to very discretely indicate things that could be done better (remember – “in your face” attitude will only create resistance, so be tactful). A good place to start is lessons learned meetings, where you’re supposed to highlight – without pointing fingers – what could have been done better. But what works best is casual conversations in the hallway, by the water cooler etc. You drop a hint and then let the executive present it as his/her idea. You will not get public credit for it, and most times not even the executive will realize it was your idea, but he/she will remember that “that guy is always in synch with me” next time when they talk about promotions.
Below there are some templates of phrases I used to get the message across. You can create infinite variations of the templates to use for your specific needs.
“I heard about this new technique to estimate project’s effort that should be quite accurate. What do you think, should we run a parallel estimate to see how it compares with our results?”
“This EVM technique PMI is promoting, it’s supposed to give executives a real project status at a glance. Have you heard anything about it?”
“You know, it may be good idea to spend a bit more time describing the requirements, so we know exactly what we’re doing when we start coding and avoid some back-and-forth with the users. Some of them think that we don’t get it because we have so many questions late in the development.”
