Heyati Driven Development!
If you have ever visited Iran, I’m sure you’ve heard about the “Muharram” and the ceremonies that Iranians hold at the time. The phrase ‘Heyati’ refers to groups or delegations who gather to mourn the death of Imam Hossein during Muharram. Holding ceremonies like that require varieties of jobs to get done; From preparing the food to setting the scene and gathering people.
I’ve seen a lot of Muharram ceremonies during the past years and, I came to the understanding that all these works are getting done in messy, stressful, and chaotic environments by unprofessional and youth volunteers; Yet amazingly done in such a short time!
The concept of working in such environments with the youth reminds me of startups and how you should deliver unknown values within strict deadlines.
But why is one successful and one usually fails?
Not a long time ago, I was part of a cross-functional team, building digital health solutions for patients in Iran. As a team, we had our ups and downs and we experienced different failures and successes. Yet my greatest experience with the team was when we seized an opportunity to provide e-health solutions for participants of the Arbaeen Pilgrimage (it’s the world’s largest annual public gathering that is held every year in Karbala, Iraq at the end of the 40-day mourning period on the events of Muharram).
We had a strict deadline and a long list of features, asked by Iran’s Red Crescent Society. Usually, in these stressful situations, it’s unreasonable to deliver tasks in such a short time, yet we managed to successfully build an application with a lot of complicated features in less than two weeks, and the experience of work was amazing.
We’ve worked along with the maximum level of empathy and the least possible dependency you could ever imagine! Every single member of the team was completely self-organized and literally, it was the ideal situation of teamwork. I believe the experience we had, was pretty similar to what happens in “Heyats”, where without the presence of complicated tools and plans, people participate in solving any problem they could solve, whether it was their “duty” or not!
Any explanation?
As Yo-kai Chou explains in the Octalysis framework, finding epic meaning in what we do, could lead us to do incredible things.
In both Heyats and the Arbae’en Pilgrimage project we’ve done, people worked tirelessly for long hours and helped each other, because there was a greater meaning beyond their duties; They felt they are part of a bigger thing than themselves and that pushed them forward. I believe this experience can easily scale in our teams and could lead us toward more agility.
PS: In the matter of finding meanings in our daily hood lives, I recommend you to read the book: Lost Connections written by Johann Hari | It’s very well explained that how not having deep meanings in our jobs, can lead modern mankind toward depression.
How to be Heyati Driven?
In my belief, Agile is not a framework or a solution; Agile is a mindset. And when you look at agile as a mindset, you probably won’t seek tools, frameworks, and coaches. Instead, you focus on minds and what’s inside them. I believe if the reason that people gathered around in a team, is epic enough, the foundations of agility have already been built in their minds. Simply, you have to start with the why and find the right answer for that. And please, please, please, trust me that the answer is not money!
PS: I think the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek, could help you to find out more about how leaders inspire teams.
It may sound radical, but when people are working from deep down of their hearts as they do in Heyats, they won’t need complicated roadmaps and tools. The matter of management and reporting systems could lead teams toward bureaucratic structures. As a matter of fact, when teams build up around epic meanings, the matters of trust and cooperation come automatically afterward. We only need to remind ourselves to trust each other.
In the end, I want to take a moment and thank Soheil Samadzadeh, who as a coach, was the source of inspiration for Heyati Driven Development.
