From: Sadauskas, Leonard, CTR, OSD-C3I (Leonard.Sadauskas@osd.mil)
Date: Fri Apr 18 2003 - 03:45:41 EST
UNCLASSIFIED
I consider change management to be central to the improvement of the
requirements elicitation and management process. Certainly NOT OFF-TOPIC.
Dr. Mead's observations abound in many endeavors outside of SPI. Take naval
and military fighting units as an example. Ships that are at the top of
their form may in two years later be found in the cellar. Why? After all,
the processes are well defined and managed, funding, manning and training
are mostly constant. Why can't the crew responsible for bringing a ship to
top form pass along their knowledge and secrets of success to the incoming
personnel? Because it is more than defined processes, funding, training and
manning. Stability helps but our workforce is becoming less stable as our
industry backs away from lifetime employment and retirement strategies. For
fighting units, all other factors being equal, we generally attribute the
difference to leadership. In industry are we calling it culture? If we
are, I submit that our RE BOK needs a whole section devoted to this topic.
Cheers
Leonard Sadauskas
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Nancy R. Mead [mailto:nrm@SEI.CMU.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 9:40 AM
To: re-online@it.uts.EDU.AU
Subject: Re: [re-online] Cultural change
Not to get off-topic, but one of the phenomena of software process
improvement is
that many organizations will improve in a 2-year or so period and then
regress
later on. When you investigate, it is generally because the "champion" of
process
improvement has moved on to another job and the permanent cultural change
that was
needed has not really taken place. Of course, this is not unique to SPI but
can
occur in any situation that requires a cultural change.
I agree that selling cultural change is easy and many consultants have made
a
business out of it. Effecting cultural change in an organization once the
consultants and management champions have gone away is much harder.
"P. Grant Rule" wrote:
> -------------------- Begin Original Message --------------------
>
> Message text written by INTERNET:re-online@it.uts.edu.au
>
> "...But it is difficult to package and sell cultural change...
>
> I strongly agreed until the last sentence, which is total crap,
> Grant (if you'll allow a bit of Oz-Oz license). It should have read:
> "It's easy to package and sell cultural change, as evidenced by the
> many organisations who make a grand living from it. It's much more
> difficult to *deliver* needed cultural change."...
> "
>
> -------------------- End Original Message --------------------
>
> Ah, well, you got me there, Andrew. I agree that, in retrospect, I could
> have worded that better.
>
> I agree that, while it is (relatively) easy to sell cultural change, it is
> more difficult to actually change a culture. But of course, the appearance
> of change is good enough for most managers. After all, they will have been
> paid a golden handshake to move on within two years, so the change need
not
> be done, only be seen to be done.
>
> Best regards,
> Grant
>
>
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