Living by Design

Agile development experience has demonstrated how practical conditions and simple processes foster highly-performant teams that produce sustainable results. A Small-World View Here are some of the "rules-of-thumb" that contribute to success: A small number of people, no more than can be fed by two pizzas Everyone in the same room with no walls and barriers Lots of collaborative tools, include shared computers, full wall visuals, and whiteboards Optimal mutual availability and accountability Full awareness of roles and capabilities Easily communicate with all members Maximum opportunity for serendipity and knowledge sharing Everyone focused on a single well understood project No personnel turnover Beyond the Ideal Of course, we all would love to have the conditions that accelerate effective teamwork as described above. The reality is that people are constantly moving, often collaborating across corporate and geographic boundaries, and working on a variety of projects in very...

This artifact from Xplane is a terrific combination of several areas I have been covering on this blog: image from Xplane - full pdf version available It's another example of how Xplane creatively combines graphics and text into content-rich, single-page visualizations to produce clear and powerful communication vehicles. Over the years this company has been a great source of communication ideas and inspiration. It highlights the disruptive dynamics and scaling capabilities of social networking . It demonstrates how social networks are far more than merely relationship building tools and trivia exchange centers. In fact they are extremely efficient engines for raising money and driving revenue . No Rocket Science There's nothing terribly new here, social networking and word-of-mouth dynamics have been impacting business and society since the rise of the first human communities. The exciting difference is the emerging visibility of these networks and the ability to observ...

What does successful collaboration look like? Understanding how communities and people interact online is essential for setting the right expectations. Often people misinterpret metrics or focus their energy in the wrong direction because they do not have a reasonable benchmark to assess how well their on-line communities are functioning. All Things Are Not Equal In any team or community you can expect to find a variety of expertise and strengths. We usually don't expect everyone to do the exact same thing, or to have the same skill sets and strengths. In fact, the complementary nature of individual strengths is essential to creating strong teams and vibrant communities. Knowing this, it is surprising that the default expectation for online interaction is identical contribution, with performance metrics that reinforce this unhealthy view. Not only is this unrealistic, it's a sure recipe for failure! Setting Expectations Most everyone is familiar with the Pareto principle ...