A Fairy Tale about Complexity
Let me tell you a story about one manager. Let's call him Bob. Once upon a time, he got a new team and a new customer. Both the team and the client have been working together successfully for a year already. Our manager was smart and experienced and decided not to touch and change what already works.
Half a year left, Bob was happy, the team was happy and the customer… Wait! The customer was not happy anymore. So she told this to our manager. There were complaints about freshly delivered features and overall team speed. Also, the customer was disappointed with the fact that not so far ago there were no such problems at all.
Bob started to investigate the problem; he remembered that he did not bring any changes to the team, their ways of working or habits. There were no new team members, and none left the team. There were no changes on a customer side. There were no conflicts inside of the team. Moreover, just recently, as usual, they spent a night in a nearby pub talking and laughing about different topics and also nonwork-related one. The team even thanked our manager warmly for a new coffee machine in the team area. Everything looked perfect besides the fact that the customer was not happy anymore.
Sometime later Bob, being already utterly exhausted by this mystery, met another manager John in a cafeteria. John looked sad as well. His customer was not happy too. They started to talk about their problems because both teams integrated on a regular basis. Together they checked all the aspects, and everything looked the same — it was an unsolvable mystery. Finally, John said "Enough! Let's go to the kitchen on our floor and have some coffee!"
The kitchen, as usual, looked crowded — a long, noisy queue was standing near one coffee machine waiting for an opportunity to get a portion.
"Ahhhhh, this old piece of crap!" Bob said. "When are they going to change it? Our developers waste so much time here waiting and chatting but not working! There is just one old coffee machine for an entire floor. It is unacceptable! By the way, I found a budget to buy a new one just for my team. It stands right in the team area. It makes you coffee in seconds. My guys are so happy! They do not have to come here and waste their time anymore. You should probably do the same for your team".
At this moment a developer from the other manager's team came to say hi: "Hi guys! By the way, Bob. What happened with your team? Is everything OK? Haven't seen & talked to them here for a long time. Hope they are fine."
Both managers took a long silent look at each other and understanding started to appear in their eyes…
Do more with less and may the force be with you!
#agileism
Half a year left, Bob was happy, the team was happy and the customer… Wait! The customer was not happy anymore. So she told this to our manager. There were complaints about freshly delivered features and overall team speed. Also, the customer was disappointed with the fact that not so far ago there were no such problems at all.
Bob started to investigate the problem; he remembered that he did not bring any changes to the team, their ways of working or habits. There were no new team members, and none left the team. There were no changes on a customer side. There were no conflicts inside of the team. Moreover, just recently, as usual, they spent a night in a nearby pub talking and laughing about different topics and also nonwork-related one. The team even thanked our manager warmly for a new coffee machine in the team area. Everything looked perfect besides the fact that the customer was not happy anymore.
Sometime later Bob, being already utterly exhausted by this mystery, met another manager John in a cafeteria. John looked sad as well. His customer was not happy too. They started to talk about their problems because both teams integrated on a regular basis. Together they checked all the aspects, and everything looked the same — it was an unsolvable mystery. Finally, John said "Enough! Let's go to the kitchen on our floor and have some coffee!"
The kitchen, as usual, looked crowded — a long, noisy queue was standing near one coffee machine waiting for an opportunity to get a portion.
"Ahhhhh, this old piece of crap!" Bob said. "When are they going to change it? Our developers waste so much time here waiting and chatting but not working! There is just one old coffee machine for an entire floor. It is unacceptable! By the way, I found a budget to buy a new one just for my team. It stands right in the team area. It makes you coffee in seconds. My guys are so happy! They do not have to come here and waste their time anymore. You should probably do the same for your team".
At this moment a developer from the other manager's team came to say hi: "Hi guys! By the way, Bob. What happened with your team? Is everything OK? Haven't seen & talked to them here for a long time. Hope they are fine."
Both managers took a long silent look at each other and understanding started to appear in their eyes…
Do more with less and may the force be with you!
#agileism
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