Project Cycle Optimisation™
Principle 4: Improved Production Chain - What each one does affects the other…
People creating silos and ivory towers can quickly cripple development cycles - making them late and over-budget. Companies should work hard to ensure that each micro-team understands the impact of their deliverables down-line and what is necessary for an efficient hand-off. Instilling a culture of, “Working for our team-mates makes us all look good” is essential for improving response times and maximising flexibility.
- Work to build an appreciation for the fact that a software development project is first and foremost a teamwork issue. Improve this area and productivity will immediately follow.
- Discourage work taking place in isolation. It creates a disconnect that will certainly cause problems at later stages of the project. Document the hand-over points clearly and what is expected from each micro-team downstream.
- Identify silos and ivory towers quickly – then remove them. These are dangerous situations that will eventually lead to negative, “knowledge equals power” scenarios.
- Train and enable your staff to fulfil not only their own roles effectively, but also to gain knowledge and abilities to fulfil other related roles professionally.
- Paint the big picture. To improve your production chain, each link must understand their role in the process and how it helps to achieve a successful project outcome.
- Ensure that a clear and concise mechanism exists to define the roles, expectations and deliverables required by each micro-team up to the hand-off stage. These are best expressed through regular performance & delivery targets/objectives.
- Remember that every new/amended activity in the production chain will result in a corresponding change to your Artefacts. Generating templates for these Artefacts (with examples) will therefore facilitate adaptability and contribute continually to the building of a powerful library for future reference.
- Use regular placements for staff (upstream and downstream) to create experiential appreciation for the entire project cycle and other people’s tasks. Remove them occasionally from their comfort zones.
- Encourage everyone to share the project’s challenges. It is surprising how often someone in another micro-team can quickly answer a problem or stoppage. Never underestimate the power of a cold objective eye. It’s a simple rule, “If you’re stuck…ask!”.
- Seek to identify and bring together good team players with complementary skills. Avoid the temptation of building groups of Gurus. Soloists by nature want to be the centre of attention, therefore, they seldom work well together.
