On Monday, October 25, 2004, at 11:43:22 PM, Ken Boucher wrote:
>> Do these teams have no other identity than getting together and
>> going to the same standup? Do they have a consistent "customer"
>> or some consistent "theme" to their stories? Do they have a name,
>> or a project name, or some kind of identity in the minds of people
>> who might want to guide them or know what they are doing?
> Assuming you're talking about our organization:
> (If you're talking hypothetical, pick your own answers)
> Consistant, yes. Fixed, no. Subject to change, Always,
> created and destroyed on an irregular basis. Sure.
> Sometimes they grow, sometimes they shrink.
> Sometimes they merge, sometimes they split.
> Sometimes they borrow people. Sometimes they have people to loan.
OK, but not as helpful as I'd hoped for. Earlier you were espousing a
specific kind of breakdown, GUI vs Model. I was thinking that that specific
breakdown would be "hot" along the edges. Then you said that people could
move around at will, which led me to wonder where they were moving from and
to, and you answered that it was from one stand-up meeting to another.
I'm sure you meant your answer to be responsive or evocative or otherwise
helpful.
>> You must have ten or more teams in the room, at a guess
> Less than that but I really don't know how many at the moment.
>> If I have a story card in my hand, how do I know which of
>> those teams to give it to?
> Pick one at random. We're adults. We'll point you to the right people.
Tomorrow, when I have another story from "my project", I'll be inclined to
go to those people again. I understand that if they aren't the right
people, they'll point me to the right people again. How likely is it that
they still /are/ the right people? Is there a pattern that I am likely to
be able to learn that maps stories to people? If so, what is it, or what is
it like?
In what way does the sentence "We're adults" advance our common
understanding? Does it mean "... and you're not"? Does it mean "... and
true adults would know the meaning of all this"? Or ...
>> If I want to shift resources or focus from one of the company's
>> goals to another, how do I do that, in terms of teams?
> Tell us. We're adults. We'll work it out.
Yes, sure. How will you work it out? You were earlier recommending a team
breakout along the lines of GUI/Model, and I gather that is /not/ one of
the breakouts you're currently using, because you spoke hypothetically. Are
your teams really as random as you're suggesting here, or is there some
kind of pattern behind the breakout?
>> If I want to know when something I care about is going to be done,
>> or what if any obstacles are in the way, how do I know who to ask,
>> or what thing on the wall to look at?
> Ask someone. Anyone. It doesn't matter. We're adults. Trust us.
I do trust you. I'm asking you how you're organized.
> Remember that old shampoo commerical where everyone told
> two friends and so on and so on and so on. Same thing. Ask
> someone at random. They'll help you in the right direction. They
> may not know they answer but they know who knows who does.
Is this really how all communication takes place in your organization? Does
a radically changed set of people show up at each stand-up every morning?
Is there really no underlying pattern to how "things" are allocated across
the groups?
>> But I'd like to know a lot more than I currently do to really
>> understand how those ideas would work in an environment where,
>> outside your walls, there are people with expectations for what
>> they'll get in return for the money they're spending, and when
>> they'll get it.
> Interesting in that I feel Semco is such an enviroment.
Yes. And I'd really like to understand how those things work at Semco. I'd
like to sit in conversations with whatever Semco uses for executives or
negotiators and see what customers say when the Semco person explains that
he's the new negotiator on the project and that he doesn't and cannot know
who is working on the project today or even how many, and that if the
customer would like to know when they're going to be done, he can point
them in the rough direction of a person who will either know the answer or
point them in another direction.
Partly I'd like to do that because I don't expect that the Semco people
answer questions that way, because my experience with people who buy stuff
is that few of them are likely to be satisfied with that kind of answer,
and so I would guess that the Semco people have figured out better answers.
I actually expect that most of the people at Semco know fairly accurately
what they're going to be working on tomorrow, and that they can explain it
in some coherent way should their husbands, wives, moms or dads or bairns
inquire. And I expect that it's the same way at your shop. I understand
that the pattern changes over time, but I also expect that it isn't just
that some of the ants came in and moved their wood chips randomly to
another pile.
>> But information can't really flow freely in all 2^80 ways in the
>> organization every day, it seems to me. There really needs to be
>> some de facto understandable, if dynamic, structure for
>> "the people" to work within, not pure random connectivity, it seems
>> to me.
> Why not? The net has similar connectivity and one thing leads to
> another related thing. If I don't know I'll the person I think is
> most likely to point me in the correct direction and they'll hyperlink
> me to the person who is most likely to point me in the correct
> direction and within about 20 yards and a couple minutes I'm talking
> to the right person.
How does that person know that they are the right person? Even the web has
routing tables. Is there really no pattern to the kinds of thing one person
knows about and the kinds of things another knows about? Is there really no
continuity to what a person knows today and what they know tomorrow? Is
there really no dimensioning?
Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Ron gave me a good suggestion once. -- Carlton (banshee858)
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