Raising the Bar

If nobody is raising the bar then everyone is lowering the bar.

Think about this now…   If all you have on staff is a bunch of people who are not being pulled along by someone who can move faster than the rest there is no reason for anyone to feel there is a race and nobody advances.

Put someone into a team who can move faster than the rest and you will watch everyone else advance to keep-up.

Fail to put someone into a team who can move faster and everyone continues to slow-down so that nobody is appearing to move faster than the rest.

I have watched this happen time and again.

The Agile Method exists to ensure everyone moves forward at a good pace.

Take some time to watch some animals in the wild you suppose should be “agile“.  You will not see any agile animals laying down for long when there is prey around.  Likewise when there is code to be written those programmers who are supposed to be agile will go after their solutions all the while never stopping and never resting until the goal has been accomplished.

Some Managers do not want to upset the status quo

This is fear-based reasoning.

Rather than shake-up the Development Teams by brining in someone who might help to raise the bar some Manager would rather be afraid of upsetting or shaking-up those who may want to sit back and enjoy the journey, so to speak.

The problem with wanting to maintain the status quo is that this leads to stagnation.

There is nothing wrong with brining in some fast flowing water, by analogy, to help make the talent pool bring forth new life.

How can you tell whether or not your current development staff is capable of growth unless they are faced with working with people who make them feel like they need to grow into more than what they are at the moment ?!?