Re-reading my blog titles occasionally leads to interesting thoughts. Many titles mention change, and most entries have something to do with change. But after all these entries no one has asked me, “Don, what do you mean ‘change’?”. Until recently, I haven’t asked me either.

Engineers make the darndest assumptions. I made one such assumption in “Change and Stable Systems”. The unstated assumption involved starting with a stable system. But what do you do if your system (as in team, project, company) is unstable?

Today I had the opportunity to remember that “context is everything”. Hurricane Frances continues her slow crawl up the eastern United States. It started raining here in North Carolina yesterday (Tuesday 2004.09.07). This morning my radio crackled with reports of accidents and emergencies. Fortunately, none were in our response area. Then the pager tones sounded. “Squad 86 respond with the local VFD to a one car roll over. One adult and two children confirmed entrapped.” I arrived just before the rescue truck. The SUV lay

In Changing Quicker we looked at reducing or removing system delays to reduce the time delay between realizing a change needs to be made, and when the change’s effects occur. Another way to change quicker involves learning to change. Learning is a process that depends on experience and leads to long term changes in behavior potential.

Will reorganizing every two weeks lead to stable software processes? What conditions would enable this to happen? When should we schedule the next change?

Several years ago I found out that I was not really in charge of everything, or in control of very much. This lead me to

Don’s Dismal Dilemma: How will I achieve my goals, when I’m not in charge or control?

“Change quotients” prompted one particular thought – since I’m usually the person recommending a change, I tend to be more sensitive to lower quotients than mine. Yet, I do recall one organization which had an intrinsic change quotient which apparently exceeded mine – they reorganized every two weeks, more or less.

Some wag said, “The only person who likes change is a wet baby.” Another favorite is “Everyone likes change, when someone else is doing it.”

If change is so inevitable, why do people, teams and organizations experience so much difficulty changing? We should be good at it!

Three of my favorite quotes about change and translations:
“The only person who likes change is a wet baby.” This change corrects a problem so I’m OK with it.
“Everyone likes change, when someone else is doing it.” I’m OK with the status quo. You do the changing.
“The only universal constant is change.” Get used to changing. The universe constantly changes so you need to change too.