I am nearing the end of my first week at the new job.
On day one, I was given Lean Software Development : An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers to read, by Mary Poppendieck. We use agile processes. And I have already noticed a big difference; issues that come up are not treated like the Spanish Inquisition, as they have at other places I have worked!
What a nice change. I've worked other places that claimed they were "agile", but it was just a term for chaos.
As said in my previous post, So You Want to Be a Project Manager, the famous Standish Group's 2007 report on the state of software development says that 19% of software projects are complete failures and only 35% are "completely successful", meeting time and cost/budget. As a certified PMP, I have seen PM's blamed relentlessly and take the fallout for projects using the Big Design Up Front (BDUF) anti-pattern, as Scott Ambler calls it, and the subsequent slippage of project schedule and budget. Do we need more control, or more lean processes? The lean training is interesting, because it also ties in with the Operations Management stuff I learned in my MBA degree. It will be interesting to see how the agile processes pan out.
In addition, I have spent several days this first week in corporate culture training. The company has a detailed on-boarding process. I have been assigned a "team buddy" and a "mentor".
This is a huge difference over my previous two jobs. Although I was a salary-paid IT guy, the bulk of the employees at those jobs were call center workers. The entire culture at those previous jobs was aimed at the Theory X management and motivation style, in all its whip cracking, gaud-awful glory. This is a nice change.