Promiscuous and Chastity Belt Business Models
Repel or invite change to your business?
Roughly speaking, there are two models in software development organizations:
Promiscuous models
Chastity belt models
Let’s first look into Chastity belt models: organizations following that model are largely in a maintenance mode. They have built certain customer base and are pulling in some revenue by delivering value. As things keep changing (i.e., market pressures, government regulations, aggressive competition), such organizations are facing the challenge of unsettling the status quo. Things are working nicely at the moment, but there is a pent up demand to make some changes to the working system.
Such proposed changes are invariably perceived as a threat. A threat to what? A threat to system stability. Any proposed change could potentially interrupt/impair the healthy system. We can’t have any of that. We cannot afford interruptions.
It is for that reason that organizations that follow the Chastity belt model tend to erect Change Management boards and committees. Change Management is largely a misnomer; a more appropriate term should be Change Prevention board. The primary duty of such boards/committees is to make sure any proposed change does not sneak into the production environment. They are, by and large, not managing the change; they are primarily preventing the change. Any proposed change to the system is viewed with suspicion.
In contrast to that model, organization who follow the Promiscuous model thrive on change. They not only embrace change, they actually invite change. Such organizations are eager to continuously exercise their engineering muscle by incurring changes to their system, almost on a daily basis. They follow the “if it hurts, do it more often” dictum.
Which model does your organization follow?