Earlier today, I came across this excellent post by Reginald Braithwaite on the management of software development. It does a great job of explaining many of the projects I’ve worked on in my career, whether they succeeded or not. Theory D clearly drove how I and various teammates ended up working. The post really helped me understand part of why the two years I spent managing projects was so difficult. I’m a Theory P guy at heart, and couldn’t pretend to be Theory D (much less actually believe it).
Braithwaite also writes a good follow up.