Steve's Seaside Life

Tagged: TeamWorking

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Productive Friction and Innovation

FrictionIn some recent discussions I have been introduced to the concept of “productive friction”, which is an effect that’s created when team members with a diverse background get together.  It happens for example when people from different cultures or academic disciplines or companies work together to solve a problem and it increases the level of innovation.  John Hagel describes it in his book The Only Sustainable Edge and in his Article in the Harvard Business Review.

This recent article in Newsweek describes the effect,  and gives some practical and simple advice on how to take advantage of it in your projects:

What they found was that the most successful teams did two things right. First, they attracted a mixture of experienced people and those who were newcomers to whichever field they were in. That’s not surprising–the need for fresh blood has long been recognized as an important ingredient in success. The second criterion, though, was far less obvious. What successful teams had in common was at least a few experienced members who had never collaborated with each other. “People have a tendency to want to work with their friends–people they’ve worked with before,” says Luis Amaral, a physicist at Northwestern …

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Simple model of personality type in business

PeopleAndre has this simple and easy to interpret model for classifying people in business:

    1. Builders – At the front of every train you typically have the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are all about ‘what could be’. They envision the world the way they want to create it and then set out to make that vision a reality. Entrepreneurs are typically described as both visionary or charismatic.
    2. Executers – In the middle car you have those that were born to execute. Executers might not brainstorm your next innovation, but once an idea is hatched, they can execute the heck out of it.
    3. Protectors – At the back of the train you have the protector. Neither innovation nor execution mean anything to a protector, who is motivated only to protect and guard what’s already been won in terms of assets. Protectors are better at saying “no” than anything else, for fear that any movement might somehow diminish or dwindle what’s been harvested by those before them.

It’s a lot easier to interpret than many models I have seem.

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War rooms increase productivity

FlexibleofficeSome of the best years of my working life were spent in an office environment I designed to promote collaborative work.  It had many of the characteristics of a “war room”.  With quiet areas around the sides, tables in the middle and loads of break-out areas, white-boards, flip charts and a design review/presentation area.  I described this environment in a previous post.  I have generally been frustrated at the lack of discussion about workspace design in the IT press, so I was pleased to come across this article that resonated strongly with my experience:

Recently, many companies in the software industry have been experimenting with putting teams of workers into “war rooms” to enhance communication and promote intense collaboration, explains Stephanie Teasley, an assistant research scientist in the U-M School of Information’s Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work.

Instead of toiling in separate cubicles, workers sit at wall-less workstations in one big, open room. The room is typically outfitted with central worktables, whiteboards and flip charts to facilitate group discussions. While companies expect benefits from such arrangements, workers sometimes balk at the idea, fearing they’ll sacrifice privacy and the quiet they need to concentrate on demanding tasks. The U-M …

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Wondering what personality type you are?

ISTJ Serious, quiet, earn success by concentration and thoroughness. Practical, orderly, matter of fact, logical, realistic, and dependable. Take responsibility.


ISFJ Quiet, friendly, responsible and conscientious. Work devotedly to meet their obligations. Thorough, painstaking, accurate. Loyal considerate.


INFJ Succeed by perseverance, originality, and desire to do whatever is needed, wanted. Quietly forceful; concerned for others. Respected for their firm principles.


INTJ Usually have original minds and great drive for their own ideas and purposes. Sceptical, critical, independent, determined, often stubborn. (Thats me)

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An Architects Perspective on IT Programme Management

I have managed a lot of IT Infrastructure projects in my time, and a couple of smaller programmes.  I have also keenly observed the management of several large programmes as a Chief Architect.  This article is written from this perspective.

 

Some initial observations:

 

  1. IT Infrastructure Projects generally fail from at least one perspective and often more

  2. IT Infrastructure projects look superficially simple

  3. The programmes have been overly influenced by the personality and skills of the Programme Director

 

The following are a set of Article Titles that I intend to write over the next year or so; they give you a good idea of the issues I think are important:

 

  1. What does he do? The importance of top down Journal keeping to programme communication, coordination and team spirit

  2. The need for a balanced management team instead of Super Men

  3. Management information is a team resource

  4. The customer is not the same as the client

  5. Objectives and Requirements, why they are different and both important

  6. The importance of programme maturity reviews

  7. Conceptual integrity and how easy it is to loose it

  8. The lost art of estimating – take different perspectives

  9. How to plan a programme, top …

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Who should work with whom? building effective software project teams

Managing a team is always a challenge, but often great fun.

Peopleware is the best book I know of that talks about managing IT team and individual productivity.  This article provides a fairly detailed analysis of the importance of personality types on team composition.  If you are building a team for a really important task, I suggest you take a look. 

The report is in 3 sections:
1: Poor Performance
2: Effective Personality Attributes
3: The Optimal Team

Here is the conclusion:

  • Software managers should be aware that the optimal personality allocations in small project teams are somewhat different than those in large teams.

  • IS managers should consider selecting personnel so there is personality heterogeneity between the team leader and other team members in the social-interaction and information-gathering dimensions. Thus, the project leader and members should be selected such that all the four of these personality categories are represented: extrovert-intuitive, extrovert-sensing, introvert-intuitive, and introvert-sensing.

  • It is unnecessary to have diversity of personalities among team members (excluding team leader) due to the fact that members need to perform multiple tasks of the SDLC and heterogeneity is not good for all phases [11]. This should give IS managers the flexibility …