XP Days Germany

Overcoming Resistance to Change (Lasse Koskela, Dave Nicolette)

The session explores the reasons why people resist change, with a focus on the kinds of change relevant to agile adoption in IT organizations. We present techniques participants can use in their organizations to help others understand and support the organizational changes necessary for successful agile adoption.

Apart from the presenters' personal experiences as agile coaches and practitioners, the session draws on research and experience from a range of sources in the IT industry, the agile movement, the field of psychology, and management science concerning personal and organizational resistance to change. It is designed to engage participants through experiential learning techniques, humor, and direct hands-on exercises to help them understand the reasons why intelligent people resist change, even when the benefits of the change appear self-evident to those who are promoting it. The session includes group exercises to practice techniques designed to overcome resistance to change. While much of the material could apply to any sort of change, our focus is on organizational change toward agile/lean culture and practices.

The format consists of brief presentation segments interspersed with (a) interactive discussion segments in which participants share their experiences and observations and (b) hands-on workshop segments in which participants engage in role-playing games to reinforce the information presented.

Über die Speaker

Stefan Roock Dave Nicolette: An IT professional since 1977, Dave discovered Agile in 2002 and foundit solved or alleviated many of the problems inherent in traditionalIT. Since then, he has been a dedicated practitioner and ardentproponent of change toward Agile and Lean thinking and practices. He enjoys sharing experiences and effective practices with fellow IT professionals and participates actively in the agile community.

Henning Wolf Lasse Koskela