A starting point for a discussion on marrying Agile methods and CMMI.After a bit of disappointing information… Time to grow up!
Posted by Hillel on Nov 26, 2009 in Agile, Business, CMMI, Culture of Excellence, Discipline | 2 comments
What turned out to be a failed meeting with a far away prospect reinforced lessons I learned a while ago….
About what it takes to be successful in business, with Agile, with CMMI, and about creating a culture of excellence.
Can’t wait for the lesson?
Here’s the bottom line: the discipline to improve shows up all the time, everywhere and in every action. Failure to respect time, respect what people know, and the experience/expertise of your subordinates are all BIG CLUES that your organization doesn’t have the culture or discipline to succeed. Even when you’re in the middle of hiring someone to help you get it.
Hillel
My professional passion is to build high performance organizations out of companies motivated to be lean, agile, and achieve world-class results. My best clients are companies who have the courage, leadership, insight, foresight and discipline to be the best places to work, the best value to their customers and the best performing for their shareholders. I take a tough love approach and, frankly, have little patience for executives who *want* these things but expect to achieve them without putting in any effort or making any changes.
2 Responses to “After a bit of disappointing information… Time to grow up!”
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Hillel Glazer
Principal & CEO Entinex, Inc.
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Hi, I found your blog as I am keen on learning how to marriage Agile and CMMi. I've worked in companies where they used one or the other. I personally always believed this is possible. As I will soon be a manager at a company who is trying to adopt both methodologies, I found this blog, while "googling" for info. This particular post really hit home!
You described my last company perfectly. I'm an American guy with 20 yrs of software development, technical project management, and top mangement experience. I joined a major Indonesian company (the 2nd largest in their particular industry) with the idea of bringing their IT dept into the 21st century. I was excited, the pay was great (even by USA standards) and I was ready!
I quickly learned of the concepts of "rubber time" and how people like to take mental siestas, albeit while actually being awake. If one has a 2PM meeting, I expect people to be sitting at the table and ready to begin at 2PM! These people dont even leave their desks until 2:05, then go to the toilet, get a bottle water, and stroll in around 2:20. I thought I was in the wrong meeting room sometimes!
I know your frustration my friend, and I feel for you: some companies realize they need a change, they are losing market share, and they have major internal issues (corruption, disgruntled employees, you name it…).
Yet, the company is not ready for change. They feel dreaming is the same as doing. Well, I'm about to head to Singapore: let's keep our fingers crossed for me!
Yup, Rodney, you've got it! Many organizations forget that talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. I know where the motivation for improvement falls into executives' priorities list and it's usually not first.
Unfortunately, these same companies are caught between delivery, sales, current customer demands and other pressures and intellectually they usually know they need improvements but knowing they need to improve is not enough to make them want to invest in doing so.
It's always the same analogy: want to lose weight? Give up the fries dipped in chocolate and get on the treadmill! There's a HUGE GULF between knowing that's what you need to do and getting off your duff and doing it!
Good luck in Singapore! Safe journeys!