Working together at scale
From my office window here at Fairisle Towers I’ve been watching a couple of graffiti artists at work. They were spray painting on the large white wall of the building opposite. Clearly they were commissioned to do the piece, and weren’t breaking the law.
Unified
They each took a different section of the picture, and seemed to work entirely independently of one another. Whilst the work was progressing, I did wonder if the final result would look a bit disjointed. But now that the scaffolding is down, the picture as a whole looks completely unified.
Clearly the two artists are used to working together, but how did they manage to produce something that seems as if it were created by one person?
Somehow they’d developed a kind of sixth sense which told them what was in the other’s mind. This enabled them to maintain a unity of vision whilst making their own artistic choices. I never saw them compare notes, or refer to a sketch. I did notice, though, they would stand together on the scaffolding every morning and look over the details of the work.
Self managing
When we’re introducing Agility to our clients our end goal is for the client’s delivery team to become ‘self managing’. The Agile term ‘the self managing team’ is often misunderstood. It doesn’t mean everybody gets to do just what they want. It’s more that the team internalises the project vision and plans its work accordingly. Members of a self managing team don't have to work out how to do each little thing, or write documents explaining in meticulous detail exactly what they’re doing. They know what to do.
Easy to fix
Of course sometimes things go wrong. There’s a misunderstanding, or something unexpected happens. And that’s why the team members share what’s happening with their work in regular (ideally daily) ‘stand ups’, just like the graffiti artists. If something needs to change, it’s usually fairly easy to make the change. If, in the worst case, it means stopping and starting again, well that’s only a day’s work to re-do.
Natural and easy
I shouldn’t think the graffiti artists sat down and decided to adopt Agile principles. It’s more likely they developed their working method organically over time. Which is another point in favour of Agility. It’s a natural and easy way to work. And once you’ve started working that way, it’s difficult to imagine going back to more formal project management methods.
If you’re interested in helping your teams work harmoniously and effectively, get in touch for a chat.
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