Pages

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Why some teams hesitate to maintain charts

I was reading Jim Shores blog, and came across an article where he has recommended to put some thought process if your team hesitates to update the "Big Visible Charts". I am not going to rephrase what he already said, but going to paste his words here:

he first question to ask is, "Did the team really agree to this chart?" An informative workspace is for the team's benefit, so if team members aren't keeping a chart up to date, they may not think it's beneficial. It's possible that the team is passively-aggressively ignoring the chart rather than telling you that they don't want it.

If people won't take responsibility, perhaps you're being too controlling.

I find that when no one updates the charts, it's because I'm being too controlling about them. Dialing back the amount of involvement I have with the charts is often enough to get the team to step up to the plate. Sometimes that means putting up with not-quite perfect charts or sloppy handwriting. I like pretty charts, so that's hard for me to do... but it pays off.

No comments: