Getting A Doer

Another question from the your questions answered section:

Should I spend more time pandering to the junior programmer who's been put into the team leader role because no-one else wanted it?
That seems like a pretty loaded question. Why would a junior programmer be put into a leadership role? Let's tackle this question in two parts. Before that, let's look at human nature. There are some key human nature points that Agilistas everywhere rely on:

• People are frightened to look stupid and so back down when they don't understand
• People will take the line of least resistance
• It is easy to motivate someone to do something they like doing
• If you treat someone as though they're special, they'll do more for you

With these principles, it's clear that the role of an Agile coach will encounter three sorts of people:

1. Believers - they'll do anything they can to busy themselves with their sort of work and to get the rewards of being told that they're a good follower
2. Agnostics - they don't give a damn and they're frightened to rock the boat, so they'll follow the path that seems to avoid any trouble
3. Anti-agilists - they question everything and they're trouble. Don't have too many on the team.

If you have a principal believer, then they should be promoted to a role that enables you to harness their fervour. Feed them anything you think will increase their passion.

To answer the question then.

Spend more time pandering to the junior programmer?
Juniors are more gullible and if you treat them correctly they will do anything you want them to. You can use your relationship with them to further divide the team. However, and this is the clever bit, you can wind them up for weeks, only to have them move to another team, which you don't control, and go totally mental applying dogma without any actual direction. Give them occasional coaching and you'll be able to watch them wreak havoc. Hilarous.

The Team Leader Role Nobody Wants
They say the best person to lead is someone who doesn't want to lead. This is nonsense.

Equally, in Agile, the person who wants to run the team is also ill equipped to do so. They will focus on the wrong thing - i.e. not getting the job done, but getting the Agiling done. That's the person you want on your Agile team.

As has been said before on this blog, if there are good managers in the team they'll see through you and make it impossible for you to do what you set out to, which is establish a self-serving process, rather than deliver good software. So, if you want to ensure success of Agile against the grain of a company, you need to ensure that there is no formal management structure to get in your way. Sending in a boy to do a man's job is one of many tools to achieve this.