Getting Upstream

Getting Upstream

When we take into account change, we regularly overlook the context for that change, and the need to alter the context to facilitate the change(s) we take into account.

Shifting Left

For instance, within the context of enhancing testing, the testing neighborhood invitations us to “shift left”; to shift our focus to earlier phases of software program supply – to the left, within the stream of software program supply actions – the place leverage is assumed to be better. In different phrases, getting upstream of the place testing actions have historically taken place.

The Broader Context

In a broader context, that of software program supply extra typically, getting upstream means contemplating the context wherein software program supply takes place.

What is that this context? For me, as an organisational psychotherapist, it’s in regards to the collective assumptions and beliefs of the host organisation. Collective assumptions and beliefs – or tradition – that constrain how the work works.

Root of Failure

I’ve but to see an strategy to software program supply that considers this wider context, not to mention gives a method to handle these broader contextual points. I attribute a lot of the failures of e.g. Waterfall, Agile, and so on. to this absence of consideration for context.

Put one other means, approaches to software program supply that fail to cater to the (thorny) problems with adoption are about as helpful as chocolate teapot within the Sahara. This concept appears alien to all of the methodologists I do know of.

Organisational Psychotherapy

Organisational Psychotherapy offered simply such a method. It invitations people contemplating modifications, modifications to the way in which they strategy software program supply, to think about the broader context as an integral a part of the change. Through dialogue, surfacing these broader contextual points and welcoming shared reflection on them, organisations contemplating change can get upstream of the modifications into consideration.

(You can discover out extra about Organisational Psychotherapy and what “Getting Upstream” of the software program supply challeng appears like in my books (Marshall 2018, Marshall 2021, Marshall 2021).

As Einstein noticed:

“No drawback could be solved from the identical stage of consciousness that created it.”

~Albert Einstein

I prefer to suppose he was speaking about getting upstream of the quick drawback.

– Bob

Further Reading

Marshall, R.W. (2021). Quintessence: An Acme for Software Development Organisations. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: [Accessed 6 Jul 2022].
Marshall, R.W. (2021). Memeology: Surfacing And Reflecting On The Organisation’s Collective Assumptions And Beliefs. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: [Accessed 6 Jul 2022].
Marshall, R.W. (2018). Hearts over Diamonds: Serving Business and Society Through Organisational Psychotherapy. [online] leanpub.comFalling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: [Accessed 6 Jul 2022].
Marshall, R.W. (2021). Organisational Psychotherapy Bundle 1. [online] Leanpub. Available at: [Accessed 6 Jul. 2022].


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