#150 – Neck Pain

There can be many reasons for an organization to have person-specific competency-based bottlenecks, such as not being aware of the potential consequences, the bottlenecks don’t wanting to share their knowledge, the other Developers not wanting to learn legacy technology competencies, or no one knowing an effective knowledge sharing technique.

No matter the reason for having them, the bottlenecks pose a huge risk to an organization and its flow; if the person (or team) is, suddenly, not available for whatever reason, it’ll dramatically increase the value delivery lead time of the organization because of having to wait for bottlenecks to deliver their part or join the teams (temporarily).

Using social programming techniques, such as Pair or Mob Programming, is a both fun and effective way for Developers to share knowledge and build up new competences, all while working on an actual delivery. As an intentional bonus, the specialist skills of the bottleneck are spread into the rest of the team, so, if you can relate, get started on that immediately.