Rory
Your books have already helped me and are continuing to help me, but I have a specific scenario at work right now and I have what I think is a good solution, but I'd really appreciate your take on the matter.
I seem to be very unhappy in Variable or Routine organizations, and I really want to work in a Steering organization, but as I've learned from you they are few and far between.
Jerry
By Variable, Routine, and Steering, Rory is referring to the cultures described in my Quality Software series.
Rory
Therefore, I want to try my hand at changing the organization I work in because a) I'll be happier (I think) and b) I think the company will be better off as well. However, after re- reading Chapter 12 of "Becoming a Technical Leader" I'm very mindful of not inflicting help. I went through an exercise where I documented the situation objectively, and then observed my feelings about it. I will include what I documented below my signature. I wanted to share it with you because I thought you might find it interesting, but I'm also interested in any help you could offer on the matter.
Rory's Exercise
The situation:
- Product Manager mentioned a new scenario to me one day before the product was supposed to be released to production.
Jerry
Strike one. Strike two. And Strike three. Out already.
Rory
- The application is currently in the staging environment where testing is supposed to center around verifying the configuration is correct.
Jerry
Huh?
Rory
- The new scenario revealed a bug.
Jerry
Was anyone surprised by this?
Rory
- The developer in charge of the part that was broken updated the stored procedures to account for this.
- After testing it again there were new errors and the feature did not work at all.
Jerry
Was anyone surprised by this?
Rory
>- After an additional change the new scenario is still not working
>correctly and an old scenario is no longer working correctly.
Jerry
Was anyone surprised by this?
Rory
More context:
- The work for this feature was handed down by a manager. Each programmer was assigned a certain area of the application to code.
Jerry
Meaning the manager had already done design work?
Rory
- I started testing this on my fifth day at the company after the design reviews were completed and I report to a different manager than the programmers.
- The product manager reports to a different manager as well.
- We have never held a retrospective on the feature.
- The feature design is not documented.
Jerry
Was anyone surprised by this?
Rory
How I feel right now:
frustrated, sad, stressed, unhelpful, confused, detached from team, hopeless
How I feel about the feelings:
- I feel a little silly for letting something that is not life or death frustrate me or make me sad.
- I feel weak for not knowing how to change the situation or myself so that I don't feel these things.
Jerry
Don't try to get rid of the feelings. Instead, learn how to use them productively. If after all this, you weren't feeling frustrated, sad, stressed, unhelpful, confused, detached from team, then there would be something wrong with you.
As for hopeless, well, there isn't much hope there. There's an enormous amount to do to change an organization that acts like you've described, and you can't do it alone. So, the first step for you is to quietly see if you can recruit a few allies. If you can't, then you should leave and find a better organization.
Rory
- I feel afraid that I may lower my professional integrity in order to increase my happiness which in the long run may make me less happy.
- I feel incompetent for feeling confused.
Jerry
No, in fact, only an incompetent person would fail to feel confused in such a situation.
And just how do you mean, "lower my professional integrity" in order to increase your happiness? In my experience, people who lower their professional integrity soon become terribly unhappy that they did it. So don't!
Rory
A brief summary of what I think bothers me the most:
We aren't working together as a team on this issue, and I feel unrelated to the problem and to the other people working on it.. I believe we're working in an inefficient way which doesn't fulfill my need to become more competent at delivering quality software. My autonomy is compromised, because I feel like the developers are using me to re-test something just to check that the code fix they made worked instead of checking it themselves before taking my time. (I feel guilty for feeling that way.)
Jerry
If it's true, then there's no reason to feel guilty.
You need to be talking with people about your feelings. That's the way to find allies--or to find out there are none to be had.
Rory
I also want to sincerely help the company deliver a great product and spend as little time and money as possible to do it, and I don't see us finding ways to improve.
Jerry
You have to find others who see things that way.
Rory
What I would like to do:
If I were an outside consultant (and I was asked to help) then I would probably schedule a meeting with the actual people involved and hold a retrospective. Then I would go from there.
Jerry
That's too big a chunk from where you are. You need to recruit support, one person at a time. If you're seen to be doing this, and then you're labeled as "subversive" and/or "not a team player," then the place is hopeless.
Rory
However, I was involved in this, and I think that some people would be offended that I'm asking them to come to another meeting.
Jerry
Again, don't try to get everybody. Change happens one person at a time.
Rory
Based on this I think my best option right now is to ask someone who was not involved in the feature and who seems to have a lot of respect and admiration to schedule and facilitate a retrospective for us.
Jerry
A good idea, but it won't happen if you're the only one supporting it. Develop allies!
Hope this helps.
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