The Potential of Focusing on Individuals

ABOUT THIS CHAPTER   The Agile Manifesto stated that Agile values individuals and interactions over processes and tools. But Agile to date has focused much more extensively on processes than individuals, and its focus on individuals has been limited to the interactions around certain structured collaborations.

The principle “Develop a Growth Mindset” contributes to a general tendency to learn, but if that tendency is not developed into more than a general aspiration, the learning will be ad hoc and will not add up to much. If you agree with the idea that a team should finish each project stronger than it started, you need to allow time for that learning and you need a plan for it.

This chapter presents a systematic approach to technical staff learning and covers the areas of learning that are either most important or most often lacking in technical staff.

Maximizing individual effectiveness should be the cornerstone of any program intended to increase organizational effectiveness. Researchers for decades have found that productivity among individuals with similar levels of experience varies by at least a factor of 10 (McConnell, 2011). They have also found that productivity among teams working in the same industries also varies by a factor of 10 or more (McConnell, 2019).

To some degree, differences in personal effectiveness are probably born, and to some degree, they are made. Netflix’s cloud architect, Adrian Cockroft, was once asked where he got his amazing people. He told the Fortune 500 leader, “I hired them from you!” (Forsgren, 2018). The point, of course, is that good performers don’t become good performers overnight. They develop over time, which means an organization that wants to be effective has the opportunity to support its staff in that development. As the recent internet meme said:

CFO: What happens if we invest in our staff and they leave?
CEO: What happens if we don’t invest in them and they stay?

Supporting your staff’s development is synergistic in numerous respects. The first and foremost reason to support staff development is that it increases staff members’ ability to contribute to your organization. There’s also synergy between the Inspect and Adapt Growth Mindset at the project level and a personal Growth Mindset at the professional development level. Finally, supporting staff development taps into the motivational power of Mastery.

As Forsgren, Humble, and Kim report in their far-reaching study of high-performing technology organizations: