Promoting, sustaining, and evolving agile practices in an organization requires expertise and experience. Initially, many companies bring in outside experts to help get things started. Laura Moore has described a model, based on the Blue Angels, which companies can use to develop and deploy internal experts.
Laura explains the Blue Angels' model this way:
- Anyone can apply to become a Blue Angel, but the existing team has complete say in who joins. It's clear that they pick the best of the best and require not only ace skills but also the ability to represent the team and the Navy in the best light.
- You serve only three years as a member of the team. One year to learn your stuff. One year to do it best. The last year is dedicated to training your replacement.
- After your stint, you return to real life. This opens spots for the next crop of team members and ensures that everything you've learned about being the best is carried back out to the Navy at large to help the whole organization improve.
Laura goes on to describe how such a model could be adopted in a software organization. She looks at the idea's impact on various people in the organization, including: a star developer, the CIO, the manager of a developer who is accepted into the program, and even a non-star developer. In each case, she finds benefit.
Would such a program work in your environment? Leave a comment and share the reasons why, or why not.