Debugging Unaligned Project Teams

shubhro.com

33 points·shbhrsaha··5 comments

This page doesn't cover it, but surely projects need to be re-aligned (or even cancelled) just as often as the teams implementing them, if the WHY/WHAT/etc don't make sense.

And yet, I can't recall ever seeing a project that had been started actually get restructured or cancelled. Only psuedo-completed and abandoned.

The framework proposed is to make sure that everyone on a project understands:

- WHY we’re doing anything - WHAT success looks like - WHO is responsible for doing it - HOW they’re going to do it - WHEN they’re going to do it

Generally speaking, most people rely on $someone_else to track that, with measurements of divergence taking place either infrequently enough to keep things on course, or frequently enough to get dulled into unimportant routine, so everyone goes through the motions, but nobody feels comfortable upsetting the status quo.

Sounds basically like a project spec or RFC-style document/Slackbot spam. I have a feeling a lot of project management apps probably started from these kinds of thoughts. Just add featuritis. :)

I like this framework. Is this only applicable for debugging projects that are already in motion, but going poorly?

I was trying to think if it could also be used to shape the discussion and documentation in the planning/design phase. But at that stage it seems like you'd first need to declare WHO is responsible for deciding what the appropriate WHY/WHAT are?

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