Scoop, Muck and Dizzy
and Roley too.
Lofty and Wendy
join the crew.
Bob and the gang
have so much fun.
Working together,
they get the job done!
Bob the Builder and many other teach it to our children. Playstation and Xbox have no hard time to seduce youngsters to play their games online in clans: simultaneously with others. The message is clear: Doing it together is the way to go. It allows to get the job done and it’s more fun too.
One Soldier Armies
Yet in the world of grown up professionals, it’s not so common anymore to be accomplishing things together. Many specialists choose to run their own One Soldier Army. They like to do their highly specialized skill thing quite independently on their own. And to send their colleagues an email at best when they’re done. Or to be bored during monthly team meetings -which consequently often contain no more than a briefing from the management-. So why would we have grown to be so reluctant to team work? It looks that often a reinforcing causal loop is at work: The effect of an event reinforces the event itself.
Specialists are reluctant to work in teams.
As a result they plan their own workload and they avoid fine-tuning and sharing information with others. On the individual upside, this allows them to accumulate exciting work on different projects, as much in line with their own individual agenda’s as possible.
As a result colleagues and team members don’t fully know in real time what’s going on, what’s a priority, which issues are at stake, what problems need to be resolved now.
As a result some specialists may not be able to deliver on time, they can’t help to quickly fetch a solution or they deliver -just before the deadline-.
As a result some may feel reluctant to show up during milestone meetings and deliveries. Or send in their parts of the job too late or insufficiently elaborated.
As a result team work doesn’t progress as smoothly as one with the team perspective would wish. Which in turn helps confirms the already existing negative appreciation of team work and to further deteriorate the desire to work with others.
As a result specialists are even more reluctant to work in teams.
Waypoint
Waypoint is designed to revert this reinforcing closed loop and to get us to enjoy successful teamwork. As in all closed loop systems, it suffices to revert one item in the loop, in order to revert the entire loop itself.
Waypoint comes in as a help to share a lot of crucial information on project progress. It is designed to continuously visualize and distribute information to other team members. The landing page shows an activity stream, sharing feedback on the accomplishment of User Stories, Themes, Iterations, Releases and Projects. Looking at this Activity Stream, it’s totally clear how much work is being done on projects. Also, it’s possible to get feedback in one’s email or through a messaging service. The Todo Today Tab features a list of all unassigned Tasks open for the day. So, each team member who wishes to contribute to the project, needs to do no more than look at the Todo Today tab in order to know what needs to be picked up. It’s visible when Tasks are closed by others. The Todo Yesterday Tab shows all Tasks that have been completed during the last 24 hours -also those completed by other Team Members-. On the Todo Stories Tab all stories for the Iteration can be seen, including the related tasks and their states (Open or Closed). Also Releases and Iterations are easily shared, as well as all Team Members and Stakeholders contact info.
When Teams make use of Waypoint, they experience serious team involvement. They see in real time what others are doing, what tasks are being finished by whom, which Stories are close to completion. And as a result they regain their full involvement. Team members notice that colleagues react faster on one’s accomplishments. Which in turn makes them make a next move quicker. And so on. So it becomes fun again to work in a team. And to getting things done. Together.
