Many times we question the what if’s and how they apply to what I do. One of the very earliest projects I had the privilege of working on involved having an active Marine General as the end customer. For those of you without military experience, we are talking about the most impressive form of command and control management ever known to exist. The youngest Marines are educated by their senior officers based on years of experience backing every decision made for them.
One might go as far as to say that by letting go of the reigns, any complex project would enter a vortex of hopelessness and spin out of control ending in a fiery crash. I am here to state to you all this is simply not the case. In fact, it is almost entirely the opposite approach that works best. Once a team understands what they are being asked to complete and why, they are generally more successful than teams that rely on the command and control structure. My what if conversation went something like this:
What if we didn’t jump into this Agile thing feet first?
What if I just kept a running list (backlog), of the things I felt should be worked on first?
What if we met daily for our recap as opposed to meeting once a week for several hours?
What if I could provide you with samples of completed work every 2-4 weeks and let you inspect our progress?
What if I could assure you that by placing confidence in the members of the team that the project stands a higher chance of being completed on time and within scope?
Who's fault is it?
Let the finger pointing begin! This is the place where the rubber hits the road. It is especially easy for people to quickly assess the situation and identify anyone else who was the cause of the debacle. This is the greatest point of contention amongst teams. This is also the greatest opportunity for the team to retrospect and adjust in order to prevent this from happening in the future.
The key here is to stop pointing fingers and start searching for clues…
Next week we will look into the executive role and see if they are the culprit.
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