"Grumpy, Descartes, Mr. Bighead, and Mr. Blasé" and your move to Agile...

Scrum Alliance - Grumpy, Descartes, Mr. Bighead, and Mr. Blasé

Anybody who has had to direct any form of change in an organization must have come to realize how it is about people. This has been recognized for a long time and documented extensively (see http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?field-keywords=change+management).

In particular, there always seem to be some people who will resist and make it difficult.

In a report about the Agile transition at Yahoo!, Gabrielle Benefield writes, "Not everyone is willing or able to change." She also states that "10 to 15 percent of people will not like the status quo at any given time" (see "Rolling out Agile in a Large Enterprise"). And I think I can confirm this statement from my own personal experience.

So lately I've been wondering: Is there a typical profile for those people who have a hard time transitioning to Agile? Are they always the same from one organization to another? Is there a magic formula to spot them right away?

After some time trying to describe the typical profile, I recognized not one but four distinct profiles. Here's how to recognize them, and some tips to help get them on board with Agile.

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Which one of these guys are you?

None, right! But you've worked with some I bet. This article has a some good tips on how to help handle them in your move to Agile...