Datasheet

Hopefully, such thinking will lead you to inquire more deeply into what’s

happening. To improve your understanding, ask questions of people around

you. It might be that what you think is the case isn’t, so it’s best not to jump to

assumptions. Recognize that different people see situations in different ways:

there are multiple ways to see things, so there’s no single right way to do things.

In trying to understand the world around you, it is probable that you’ll ﬁnd

the need to give up some of your current beliefs and understanding of the way

in which the organization operates. This is normal – the process of learning also

entails the process of unlearning. If you aren’t challenging what you think you

know, then you aren’t learning anything.

Taken together, the process of thinking, inquiring, learning, unlearning and

understanding is called reﬂection. It simply means taking time out to think about

what’s happening.

At some points in the book, I will suggest questions that you might like to

think about. These are intended to help you relate the material to your

organization. Hopefully, this will help improve your understanding and reveal

opportunities.

To help others learn and change, you have to begin with yourself. Nobody

can tell you what to do; nobody can give you a recipe to improve your team –

you have to decide what you want to do and you have to make it happen. This

requires thought and understanding.

1.10 The Organization of the Book

By now, I hope you have a good idea of what this book is going to talk about. We

will return to several key points:

In the modern economy, knowledge is key to all business activities; knowl-

edge can give your business competitive advantage and greater proﬁts.

Software development is a knowledge-based industry and the workers are

knowledge workers.

Knowledge results from learning and acting on that learning, which

involves change.

Without change we can’t capitalize on what we learn, and without change

we can’t continue our learning.

Agile methods are rooted in organizational learning; in order to become

Agile, we must change the way in which we do things – in order to stay

Agile and improve further, we must learn.

Figure 1.2 shows graphically the philosophy behind this book, with learning at

the heart. Initially, we start by seeding and motivating learning: most good

software developers are eager learners. Frustration sets in when barriers are

encountered. Many of these barriers come from implicit assumptions and the

14 Chapter 1