Musings about Team Dynamics
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The team at the center
Reading time: 4 min
When talking about agile practices, the distinction between projects and products often comes up. The idea is that the limited lifespan of projects tends to be pushed onto the delivery team, which leads to the team being assembled at the onset and dismantled when the project completes. Agile practitioners advocate for a product view, where teams are dedicated to a specific product and deliver incremental value at a regular cadence, across initiative lifespans. This usually works really well, and I too favour a similar way of working in most cases. However, I have recently seen various examples of this idea being misinterpreted, which creates a situation in which teams struggle, largely due to their setup.
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Be the change
Reading time: 3 min
In context of our attendance at Collision last month, we published a quick survey to validate some of our assumptions about Socrates. While the survey is still open for everyone to provide us with feedback, this post summarizes the results of the first respondents.
The Queen's Hyperloop Design Team: a lesson in Systems Thinking
Reading time: 3 min
Last year I was invited to help the Queen’s Hyperloop Design Team improve their chances in the SpaceX competition. They had just been informed that they did not make it into the last round of the competition, so we focused on setting up the team for success going forward.
Making every team thrive
Reading time: 2 min
As soon as the sun first rises above the horizon in Springtime and melts the accumulated snow and ice, high in the Canadian arctic on Baffin Island, the arctic poppy hangs on to every ray of light it can grab and livening up the rocks it grows in between and on top of. When the sun no longer disappears during midsummer nights, its stem rotates the full 360° so that the flower maximizes the benefits from the scarce warmth and light it needs to grow. The circumstances in the high arctic are harsh such that very few plants or animals can survive. Yet, the delicate arctic poppy has found a way to thrive there.