Quote of the Day - John A. De Goes on Teams

Overheard on the XP list, John A De Goes describing his attitude towards teams and processes.

There's a growing realization that companies, organizations, and teams, they're all comprised of humans, and being a human is radically different than being a machine. You can't engineer something comprised of humans -- you have to grow it, nourish it, cultivate it. You can fix a broken machine by following a recipe, but you can't fix a group of people that way. Prescriptions for success amount to nothing, because they ignore the human component, which, when all is said and done, is the most significant factor determining success -- development methodology be damned.