Jay,

I often describe crisis management in terms of a Florida land
developer from the fifties (prior to environmental lawyers). His job
consists of improving the land so that a subdivision can be built where
previously there was a swamp (all ecological discussions aside).

His job consists primarily of two different activities. The
important activity of "draining the swamp", and the urgent activity of
"killing alligators". The key to this analogy is understanding that
draining the swamp deprives alligators of breeding ground, and
eventually reduces the number of alligators. If you spend all your time
killing alligators, then the swamp is never drained. If you spend all
your time draining the swamp, then alligators scare all of your
potential customers away, or worse eat them. Both activities are
important, but the most important thing is to balance your efforts.

Many software teams spend so much time killing alligators (i.e.
I need a build of project X this afternoon!) that they never drain the
swamp (i.e. I need an automated build process.) I'm too busy fixing bugs
to write tests is another great example.

-Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: testdrivendevelopment@yahoogroups.com

The nature of the domain includes frequent crisis. One of the things
that
has impaired the team in the past has been important interruptions.
What
ever the plan is it must be resilient to crisis. Management will not be
able to step in and protect the adoption of TDD. Being able to switch
back
and forth between trying the new way, TDD, and the old way will help in
being resilient. This also provides an easy out for people who are not
self
motivating. They need a balancing external force pushing them to
re-enter
the new way, TDD.
A scoreboard can be that external force. I have been working on adding
group and personal scoreboards to CCNET's dashboard. As Steven Covey
says
no one takes it seriously unless you are keeping score (The Four
Disciplines
of Execution by Steven R. Covey).
I have through personal struggle that not everyone learns in the same
way.
I do not do well in the traditional school setting. Some people do best
with a book, some by doing, and some by attending a presentation. I
would
like the plan to account for this providing resources for the way each
person learns.
Basically I want a structure to empower the individual (pg 197 Principle
Centered Leadership by Steven R. Covey). Once the plan has been
constructed
all the stakeholders would agree to it and a commitment would be made.
I
would like the plan to include everyone's personal plan. If everyone
writes
down what they are going to do and they feel that they had a hand in
determining how they are going to do it they will be more likely to do
it.
Studies have shown that they will do it in less time than if they were
just
old what and how to do. The study that Covey shares in Principle
Centered
Leadership reached their goals in 6 weeks after switching to an
empowerment
structure; previously it took 6 months.







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