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By Rich, June 21, 2010 10:36 am

I often hear the phrase, “We hire the best and brightest.” It leaves me wondering who hires the “worst and dimmest.”

In order to experience real success every team needs to determine how they can achieve extraordinary results with ordinary people. When I teach our Agile Explained class, I reference the six focus areas of Six Sigma. These include Environment, Measurement Systems, Methods, Materials, Machines, and People. My belief is most management teams first look at the people as the key to solving their most pressing problems.  “If we only had better people things wouldn’t be this bad.”

Don’t believe it. We have good people in our industry. The people in our industry are smart, dedicated, educated, and diligent. It’s not about the people.

When the Standish Group measures our industry and catalogs the top reasons software projects fail, competent staff often falls toward the bottom of that list. This resonates with me.  In fact, the Standish Group suggests that replacing your staff with even more competent people might only move your Successmeter by 5%.  Why? Because we already have competent staff on our teams. It’s not about the people.

One of the most intriguing stories I’ve heard along these lines is the story of the NUMMI Plant in Freemont, California, a joint-venture between Toyota and General Motors. Anyone who is interested in the effect of process on results should listen to this NPR story. This story outlines how in the 1980s the worst performing plant in GM history became the best performing plant.  Same people. Same machines. Same plant. Different methods and different measurement systems made all the difference.

We see the same effects here at Menlo. We often refer to ourselves as a refugee camp from an industry gone very very bad.  We are able to take members of  teams performing below industry standards and quickly assimilate them into our team. Their enthusiasm, energy, motivation, and productivity immediately rise. Same people, different process.

It’s not about the people. As you consider how you might make things better at your company, don’t start by looking at the people. Start by looking at yourself and then look at your process. The payoffs aren’t just in higher productivity and better quality, but also in a better life for you and your team.

We believe it is possible to have joy in software design and development. We hope the same for you.