In any form change is difficult and different people handle it differently. Some embrace change and want to learn something new. Others will go into it kicking and screaming, fighting all the way but will eventually accept this is the way things are now. Then there are the ones who just out and out refuse change PERIOD! Something new will be rolled out to the team and they will just go about their day as if nothing ever happened. They will continue doing the same thing they’ve done for decades the same way they have done it day in and day out. These “legacy employees” are the biggest hurdle when trying to implement any new methodology.
I’ve been certified in the Agile/SCRUM methodology three different times at three different companies. One of them was an early adopter of Agile/SCRUM but the other two were late comers to the party. Those who brushed Agile/SCRUM off as a “fad” and refused to turn away from Waterfall quickly learned their competition who did take on this new method were beating them in a development speed race. They usually thought they could slide by on name recognition alone so in their collective small minds thought, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Never suspecting Waterfall was drowning them. But then the smaller more “agile” companies began biting at their heels. So they would reluctantly make the change. Granted not all companies have woken up from the “Kool-Aid dream” that they’re the hottest shit in town.
A prime example of this was the last company I worked for. They STILL have not adopted Agile/SCRUM even though they’ve been trying to implement it for about three and a half years. Which is not surprising because they had just switched over from Lotus Notes to Outlook the year before (but they still used Lotus for production tickets.) Waterfall was the only bit of security blanket they had left. People would ask me what it was like working there versus past companies and I would tell them it was like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. As soon as you walked into the place you could feel the passive aggressive wave wash over you as if you just walked into a banquet thrown by Al Capone minutes before he bashed someone’s skull in with a baseball bat. It wasn’t an outward defiance to Agile/SCRUM. Everyone smiled, nodded, sang the praises of Agile/SCRUM and were “excited” to try something new. But you could tell if you tried to shake up the status quo your future was in question at the company. Which is probably why I don’t work there anymore. There was one interaction I had with a manager which solidified the delusion most of these people were under. We were discussing the project I was working on and why it was almost a YEAR behind its release date. The manager had a hard time wrapping their head around why the company’s competitors were able to release things to production quicker than they were. I nearly bit clean through my tongue. Then they swung around to show me an online article showing the company ranked first and third in the marketplace. I think that says it all.
These are the people that are holding most of the legacy companies in the industry back. They exist in these industries from the top down, and they are an almost immovable entity. Almost. A previous company I was at where I was certified in Agile/SCRUM for the second time was able to move that entity. When they hired a new CTO, he had one initiative in mind when he started. The IT department was going to move to the Agile/SCRUM methodology immediately. With that announcement he gave a warning (mainly for those legacy employees) basically saying, “Get on board or get out of the way.” Of course, none of them heeded that warning. The guys in Dev Ops were the first to go less than a month after the warning was given. A quarter of the department paid the price for their outward disdain for the change. One day a whole row of Business Analysts was walked out. Over the next few weeks one by one developers, testers, project managers etc. disappeared. The CTO was cleaning house! He knew what he had to do to move the company forward into the future. By the way, the other “Flintstone” company I worked for is currently on life support. Although they think they’re doing GREAT!
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