Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

Chapter 4. Learning

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

—Leo Nikolayevitch Tolstoy, writer, 1828-1910

Think back over the last ten years. What have you learned? What have we, the programmer community, learned? Maybe you learned C# or Java – or relearned C++ in the ISO version, with the standard library and meta-programming. Or maybe you've learnt Python, JavaScript, Perl, Ruby or some other scripting languages that didn't exist in 1998. Perhaps you're not a programmer, but you've picked up bits of technologies such as HTTP, FTP and XML somehow.

If you're a manager, you may have learnt PRINCE 2, ITIL or balanced scorecard techniques. And you still need to learn the consequences of technologies such as .NET, even if you're only managing people who use them.

Whatever your speciality is if you work in IT, the chances are that you've learned a lot of new technologies in the last ten years. If change is the only constant, then learning is the only real skill you need – the corollary being as follows: If we can't learn, can we change?