More than XP. More than one day.

In “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” we follow the journey of an idealistic politician as he learns to deal with the political side of Washington. Likewise, agilists undertake a journey where we learn that it takes more than working software that meets business needs for software projects to truly succeed. As with polite after-dinner conversation we do not always discuss the taboo topics of “politics” and “religion” in the agile community. If we pretend that the political dimension does not exist on agile projects then we cannot develop and share practices that help us handle these situations. This panel brings industry professionals to share their perspectives and experiences, the audience should come prepared to both ask and answer questions.

PANELISTS:

• Rachel Davies. Whatever your role, you need to balance your long-term career development against short-term project constraints. When these needs are in conflict, we look for creative ways to align them. Life is a political act. We all create and leverage alliances as part of our daily work life. I would like to be able to discuss openly issues and trade-offs that shape our technology and methodology choices on software development projects rather than leave them shrouded by rhetoric to conceal underlying motivations. I believe the agile community needs tools that help teams explore such issues in a non-confrontational way rather than denying their existence.

• Mike Feathers. One of my favorite essays is ‘What You Can’t Say’ by Paul Graham. In it, he doesn’t actually say what you can’t say, but he talks about why you can’t say it, and what might happen if you do. In team situations, we often have a few “elephants in the living room”; things that people don’t talk about. Here are a few of them: organizational politics, power, passive/aggressive behavior, deception, knowledge containment, organizational expectations of people in employment relationships, and limitations on the perfectibility of practice. There is fear behind all of these topics. Often it is fear of being misunderstood, or fear of retaliation. I hope that in this panel, we can discuss this fear, its genesis and whether it can be surmounted given what we know about human nature.

• James Davison. The difference between a successful and unsuccessful project is more often than not about perception. And how an audience perceives something is the domain of the politician. In a corporate environment everyone is a politician and winning the approval of the key players (stakeholders) is all important. I have seen projects being efficiently executed be abandoned and have seen projects with budgets 10 times the amount they need go ahead and it is all due to perception. This makes the project manager’s role part sales person, part mediator, part councilor and all politician. There is no option to “avoid politics” you must play the game and protect your project to ensure its survival and success.

• Sallyann Freudenberg. Agile involves a cultural change. It also involves a shift in power back to the customer. The flipside of this is that it may be perceived as a loss of power for those whose roles were previously defined by telling the customer what they ‘wanted’ and controlling how and when they got it. I have come across a number of political smells that can result in blocks to agile. I have used a range of techniques (with varying success) to help get past these blocks and find a mutually agreeable way forward. My personal style is generally a very open one so these mainly involve open discussion rather than stealth. I am also currently very interested in identifying key ‘levers’ for people and how to present information in a way that best fulfils their needs.

• Stuart Blair. Policies. Edicts. Engagement processes. It can be easy to forget that these chunks of organisational dogma are put in place by well-meaning people. Those people exhibit behaviour as directed by their values and the incentives or constraints of their environment. Coaches in XP teams who seek to remove impediments to a team’s progress often identify areas where there’s a need to break organisational policy to improve efficiency. This can elicit strong emotional responses from people who perceive such activities as an undermining of their position. I believe that in order to deliver a successful team, coaches need to be sensitive their political surroundings. Progress in these muddy areas of conflict can be made by sticking to your values while being clear about your incentives and constraints and seeking to understand those of others.