When things aren’t going the way I’d like I’m often tempted to blame others: “it would all be okay if it wasn’t for those pesky programmers / business analysts / customers”. These responsibility holidays are comforting and relieve stress, but have the potential to ossify into a dangerous habit.

I have to remember that blaming others draws focus away from my own faults. By act or omission I am always in some way responsible for any of those failures. By focussing on what others seem to be doing wrong, I can fail to see the pressure points I might use to turn things round.

Complaining that the rest of the team do not take TDD seriously is a dead end. On the other hand, if I apply Ohno’s Five Whys……

• Why do they not take TDD seriously? Because they have not been fully exposed to the benefits.
• Why haven’t they been fully exposed to the benefits? Because they are not practicing TDD.
• Why are they not practicing TDD? Because they are not familiar with the tools and practice (and I haven’t nagged them enough)
• Why are they not familiar with the tools and practices? Because they haven’t been properly tutored in TDD.
• Why haven’t they been tutored in TDD.
• Because
  • answer 1: because I am too impatient and distracted to spend the time.
  • answer 2: because I am too engaged in trying to solve all the problems myself to get help from outside the team.