Change builds on Strengths

I had an interesting insight today while talking to a friend: Change is good, but it must incorporate current strengths.

On the XP bandwagon, it is easy to tell people "how to do it right". There are certain accepted practices that help make your project a success and you need to adopt them. Getting to the point where people are willing to adopt them and do it right is an interesting challenge all on its own.

Many projects do many things right, build on the things they do right. Introduce things at a pace the people can handle. Sometimes massive change will be possible, sometimes incremental change over a long period of time. This was the mistake I made at presslogic. I wanted them to make change at my pace, not theirs.

Success should be measured as improvement, not conformance.