Adopting Test Driven Development through Performance Reviews

Actually, if I back off the TDD subject for a second, how do you motivate people to do their job in a different way? Let’s put aside the fact that the “new” way of doing work might be better than the “old” way. Maybe it’s just a “different” way with the same results… so, let’s find a stupid example.

<drama>
I work in a burger joint flipping burgers. I have been doing that work for over 10 years, I must like it I guess. I have my techniques down. I could cook you a burger to perfection in no time with my eyes closed. One day, my manager comes around and tells me that he learned at BurgerConf that there is a new and better way to cook a burger. His sales pitch is that the burger tastes better, it’s more tender and I will never get an angry customer again! I first hesitate to believe him. “I have been doing this for 10 years, what does he know?”. Even though I listen and try to understand the new techniques, I keep thinking “this will never work here, it’s nice to know and might work in an ideal world, but I serve more than 100 people a day.”

A year goes by and my manager comes back from BurgerConf again. This time, he is serious about the new techniques. “Everybody is doing it” he says. “We need to adopt now or we will be out of business. A few of our customers already left, and those who are loyal are complaining about our quality compared to the other burger joints.”

- “Okay, okay” I said. “But I don’t have the time to try this out! I still have to serve many customers a day!”
- “Your performance review will include the new techniques, you have no choice.”
- “Ok, fine. Things will be slow at first. I will need to learn.”
- “We can afford that! We are loosing customers!”
- “But…I can’t do it if I don’t train and spend some time learning.”
- “Just get it done and don’t drop the time to deliver the burger”
</drama>

Let’s stop the drama now and look for alternate endings…

Ending #1. I try those new techniques but don’t really believe in them, so I do a bad job applying them. My customers are really upset at my burgers now. I loose my customers patience quickly. Finally, with no customers left, the burger joint closes and everybody blames it in the new techniques from BurgerConf.

Ending #2: I fight to adopt the new techniques. “Give me proof that this really works! It just doesn’t apply here”. And while I wait on that proof and fight back, I keep on loosing customers to the other joints.

Ending #3: my manager understands and acknowledge the effort on how this is going to affect the burger joint. He makes sure that I have extra time to learn the basic techniques and even experiment with the advanced ones. We work a plan together, involve our customers and make our burger joint, the best around town.

Another story could be that I was on top of what was presented at BurgerConf, learned the new concepts and practiced them. I am the one talking to my manager about the new techniques. “Fine, but the delivery time cannot change!” he says. It’s then my turn to defend the value and benefits of the new methodogies with the same passion that my manager defends the delivery date and work out a compromise.