Great post. My approach to strategic change management says the quality of the first five percent determines what happens in the rest of the process. This same principle applies to many situations….

It is about trust and all about a team effort, "you can make the impossible seem trivial".

Many Thanks Cory and Mr. Hericus

"Hope is suspending reality…"

There is so much that is right on the nail in this article. I haven't even followed up all of the links at this point, but I'm sure I'll get even more out of this. This one goes in my bookmarks right away.

I just have to echo that it is all about trust and communication. If anyone on the team sees that something is going wrong, they have to feel like they have the trust of the whole team and can stand up and say "stop!" without being shouted down (or worse – ignored).

That kind of communication and trust level all of the differences among the people on a team, and create such an environment where everyone has bought-in to what is happening.

You can make software happen without that. It is possible. But with that kind of team buy-in, you can make the impossible seem trivial.

Thanks for the post!

I'll take your comment in two chunks:

1) Reassurance from Management about survival – This isn't faith, this is a foundational component. If the team doesn't feel like they'll have a job, then no other priorities can matter, because it becomes a highly distrustful, CYA environment. But effective communication is vital to pick up that things like that are being felt. You may think as a manager everything is fine, but it may not be.

There's a great book called Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management which talks about strategies to get that information. I didn't go in-depth in my post above, but that listening is part of the communication section.

2) Providing Tools, Resources and Atmosphere: I think that teams actually have much more control over this than they think. If more collaboration is needed, the team tears down the cubes. If new tools are needed, the team gets them, or collectively comes together to make a business case. A key component of that is courage to make the change – not that people are cowards, but that sometimes you just step out there and make things happen. Great teams can question each other and call each other out – and that comes from a deep understanding and trust of each other.

In other words, it's very often true that it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. If you can justify solidly what you need done, then just do it.

I believe everyone on the team plays a role in creating this "faith".