Teamwork: the combined action of a group of people, especially when effective and efficient. An emergent property from working in an environment filled with trust, vision, and collaboration.
Years ago that I had a bit of fun on a train commute. Remember those? Trains, planes and automobiles to get to work… Mind you, I was in the “quiet car,” so it was not a raucous karaoke kind of fun. More inside-my-own-head kind of fun. I built a personal …
Has the team’s daily stand-up lost a bit of freshness? How might you know? See if you can detect any of the following indicators:
No one seems to be listening to anyone else
Someone is giving waaaaaay too much detail
People are just reporting status: “I’ve been doing my job”
Lack of peer accountability
General dearth of energy
What exactly is bikeshedding? A recent conversation brought a renewed vigor to my use of the term “bikeshedding.” The term was coined c. 1957 by C. Northcote Parkinson to illuminate a discovery he made – that groups of people tended to make a futile investment of time and energy on disputes over …
TL;DR Limit the WIP by process step Finish what is started When “blocked” instead of picking up something new resolve the bottleneck The end result will be a self-optimizing system of continuous improvement in which value throughput is always increasing.
Sometimes the right (or at least initial) response to a request for action “now” is “No.” – It’s far easier to say “yes” later on…
On the other hand, maybe you don’t even have to choose between “Yes” and “No” particularly if you’re trying to initiate a conversation.
