Communication | Technology Conversations

To survive, you’ve got to keep wheedling your way. You can’t just sit there and fight against odds when it’s not going to work. You have to turn a corner, dig a hole, go through a tunnel – and find a way to keep moving. – Twyla Tharp

Customer is unhappy with how the provider works. Due to some contractual and logistical reasons customer cannot change the provider so he chooses to force the provider to improve by adopting more iterative and incremental way of development together with other Agile practices.

Provider is not happy with the decision. He is risk averse and any change is considered a risk. Risk mitigation of this transformation receives bigger priority than the transformation itself. Management is so concerned with risks that it does not even try to understand what the transformation is all about. Any deviation from the Waterfall model and practices established years ago is considered unacceptable.
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I tend to discuss things openly and often with my colleagues. Before I start Google-ing for some solution, before I start banging my head around some problem or before I start designing an application or some new feature, I tend to consult my coworkers and see whether their experiences might help. At other times, I see someone’s commit and became curious about the reasons for the way that someone implemented the solution or I might see the better way to do something. The list goes on and on… In all those cases, I prefer to get up, pair with someone and work it out. Ideally, that someone is sitting next to me. Those I communicate with do not seem to mind. Quite contrary. Unless they are very good at pretending, they act in a similar fashion and seem to do the same with me. All in all, there is a lot of communication going on, great ideas floating around and, ultimately, some kind of shared knowledge and ownership is established. I truly believe that those discussions are what makes us all better professionals.