Skip to main content

Problems, Processes and Team work

How do I identify the problem ? 

Many of us spend a lifetime in pursuit of this question. I learnt it through an unconventional way.


Recently I was on the Google meet with my team. We are working first time on a project from five different locations. A colleague external to the team was present there. She was scheduled to help us all navigate some tough waters. To push aside a few conflicts and set the narrative right, she was wearing the hat of a moderator. 

The meeting went on for sixty minutes. Each team member got to speak. The moderator could be seen writing notes on a paper. By the end of the meeting a few project related conflicts were converted into clarity with her support.

These roadblocks had persisted over some time. The team had veered into some setbacks. When I pressed the red button to close Google meet session that day, I saw them vanish like ice on a hot summer day. 

Lessons 

How to solve some team issues ?
Write the individual narratives on a paper under names of each person, one after the other. Connect the dots, and then re-tell the story to re-confirm the narrative. The process helps set things right. When the moderator showed calm and ease, it helped the team. 

That is progress. A step ahead to identify the problem within the problem identification process. The step to begin writing the problem is by achieving a consensus about what each team member knows well about the issue. It also clarifies what we do not know. Write that down as well. 

Take some time. Objectivity to each information is the key. 

By the end I felt it was worth the effort we all put in. 

I wonder : could the team have done the same without the  moderator ? how much time could we have saved ? what more (or less) could we have learnt ?

I was able to love the process which I saw happen in front of my eyes nevertheless.

What next ?

I am heading another initiative to support my classmates for application of jobs and higher education. I am looking to stick with the idea. Affirming the same model for organisation could work out well in work-from-home situation in big teams. 


Take away : Listen - write it down - narrate to the group - clarify each fact & suggestion and then confirm with the team whether you have heard it right. (Yup! moderator did it!)  In the process negotiate the terms to come at a decision of where we stand. 

Quote for Today : Believe in serendipity. Often help comes in a 'design' which you least expect. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Phone Call

Tring ! Tring ! After 2 seconds ... Tring ! Tring ! Tring ! The phone rang loudly but nobody picked it up. It had been lying like it had been last night. Alone, cold on the floor above the mattresses spread for a man to sleep. The man was the father. A father of two people both in adulthood, with a son and a daughter. The children and their mother and father all lived in a two bed room apartment. The apartment also has a kitchen, two balconies a staircase to lead any visitor up on to the terrace and down towards the ground floor. The phone in its standby mode lay peacefully in bliss on the third and top most floor of an establishment which is over 20 years old. It was bought after a lot of hard work and planning by the father to give a home to his two adolescents and more space to grow up. This home was not just a home. Although it was small but it saw a lot of developments in peoples lives. With people living in it and outside and using it to their fullest extent with cre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Latest Read : Upside of Irrationality

Our brain has wonderful way by which it constantly evolves along the way devising ways to leave us astray. At times it tries teaching something to us. We all usually busy in our world, decide against its meaningful advices and encroach upon 'decisions' we deem fit. What we never discover is the source of errors in judgement. Subconscious knows all and decides to inform at appropriate timing what we seek to accomplish. But gut and intuition (which at time prove to be wrong) come in between claiming everything. If we win, we call it glory, if not,  it is termed as a mistake. But  fellows. It is not our decisions over which we so easily lay claim upon that make us win. On the other hand it is the subconscious. While executing pre -ecided actions we choose to listen (best thing to do!)  all that our subconscious has clammed up in the past. That usually makes us execute our plans with a promise of success or at least save as from a nasty debacle. Everyday while we are b...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Shit Hits The Fan

  2021 December Shit hit the fan and I was left to clean it up. I failed in writing my response papers at my fellowship. I failed to respect the idea of novelty in the subject. I failed to create the make sense of the time that was given to me. I narrated the story that I had come with. That I knew what I wanted, that what I wanted was exactly same as what I needed. It is the novelty of the newness. Most thing get ignored when only some needs to be focused. Please get out of my head, the irritation persisted. I am not in a frame of mind, I would say, like I would say to my mother, who would barge into my room to ask something. The thought that I had not failed loomed constantly, I would reassure myself again and again, that I was okay. Nothing was.   15 people in my family had passed through covid-19. More than 6 were in hospital during the festival of Diwali. I had visited none, not even once did I visit them to ask. That was not the worst part. I couldn’t accept, I...
Post a Comment
Read more