Engaged Youth » Reflecting on Team Work

Reflecting on Team Work

October 25th, 2007 at 02:38pm Adri Permalink

I’ve observed that this team has multiple ways of working together and many different areas, and I find it fascinating how this comes together and translates into action. Note that I come from a highly organized corporate culture where there’s always control on time, budget, and human resources. Normally I’m used to having a project lead/director who is in charge of centralizing and organizing the vision, tasks, deliverables and resources.

Here are some thoughts about this structure, and actions I will incorporate going forward. Please feel free to give me feedback:

Pros:

It engages people at a personal level
Free flow collaboration
Fosters independent action
People can contribute as much or as little as they want
Communications lines are open
Organic configuration that can adapt as project grows and evolves
Everything has equal importance

Cons:

Hard to build and keep track of common vision and understanding of how it all fits together (is there a work breakdown system diagram somewhere???)
Unclear decision process (when and who needs to be present, when to use blog vs meetings, who can veto decisions, who can revisit/challenge a decision already taken)
How to determine how many people join, when, and what role they play
Hard to keep focus on results: what are next steps are for different members and expected deliverables
Unclear what is out of scope

Going Forward:
1.Frame Discussion: Because there’s different meetings and people involved, I see the need to spend a little time always giving a bit of background:

what I’m doing
why
how it connects to the rest of the stuff
clarify what I want from people (an opinion, a decision, collaboration, etc).
clarify whether I’m opening a “vision, long term discussion” or ” right-now, immediate action thing.

2. Decision Log: Deen’s idea was great and I’m keen to start using it after every meeting.

Questions:

When does a “proposal” become a decision?
What types of decisions are worth blogging?

Entry Filed under: collaboration reflections, misc

2 Comments Add your own

1. Deen Freelon | October 25th, 2007 at 6:46 pm

Adri,

To respond quickly to your last two bullets—I would say that the line between “proposal” and “decision” should be hashed out in those last 5 minutes of each meeting. Each team should ask themselves: Which of the issues discussed today have we resolved? Which will need to be discussed at future meetings? It won’t always be clear, but I expect that people will be able to reach consensus most of the time.

As for decisions worth blogging, again, always a judgment call. When in doubt, I would say blog it, but you’re right, not every little detail needs to be logged. If you think it will be worthwhile for people to remember beyond the next few days, go ahead and post it. When people outside the group will be affected, definitely write it up.
2. Lance Bennett | November 5th, 2007 at 5:44 am

I agree that there are pros and cons to each decision process style. What seemed missing from our earlier process (which is clearly less hierarchical and more organic) was a facilitator such as you. It has been really helpful for me to have someone who digests meetings and then returns to frame the issues at a next meeting. This helps clarify concepts and keep the process moving forward.