Faster, Further or Both?
Why team relationships bring more effectiveness than methodology.
if you want to go fast, go alone,
if you want to go further, go together.
Originally this quote helped me to choose the right strategy to embark each project, but in fact is a tricky quote, it forces you to pick, but you can still have the best of both parts.
If you Choose to go Solo you can go faster, right?
Almost, the main “pro” is that you define the pace of the workflow and if you want to rush it, you can. The logistics are simple, cheaper, and you focus on getting the job done. Cheers!
But the main “con” is that this tendency of thinking jumps to other fields of your life, the side of your personal life, health or economy could be taking the damage, and less than a disruptor maverick, you start feeling like a lone wolf.
So, going Further and building a team is better?
Going further with a crew is important, you can sail deeper waters, mix jobs and skills, face bigger projects and introduce work frameworks.
But even achieving success doesn’t feel right when that passionate small team starts to feel more like a bureaucratic senior tag team, and even when you are changing the world, it feels like you are feeding a white elephant hungry for resources; and it starts feeling like suddenly one day it could rise against its creator.
How to go Further and faster? Is it possible and sustainable?
yep, it’s fully possible, only impossible for rigid structures (or minds).
if you want to go fast and further, you have got to work as one.
The real challenge is that we are humans, not assets, we got personal interests, responsibilities, passions, expectations and debts with reality. And that affects performance (either solo or with a crew).
Relationships are the workgroups boost, rather than methodologies.
Years ago I was at a waterfall development team, I recognized that my energy didn’t come from the office but from my family and friends.
For each lunch, my wife attached a post-it to it, even people around me started following a post-it chain, and rather than friendship we empathized and defined that we all got the same personal interest, growth, and that everyone must bring everything to the table.
Months later the entire party moved to different agency, the setup time was minimum, we started on February with 12 months to cover the kickoff investment, we made it in just 5 months.
It’s all about relationships, methodology improves management, relationships create workspace culture, and that’s the only path to work as one.
How? Crossing professional boundaries on purpose.
Last year we started Kingdom Element, a design team where we rationalize all those facts and tailored work culture on purpose, We call it “Branch”, in no time we started feeling that we were going further and faster than our previous workgroups, we are still not the biggest studio around but without scaling the investment, even lowering our operational cost, we are each day way more efficient, and the billing rates keep increasing.
In startup language,
We are a decentralized Agile team (close to crystal clear approach) with coached ramen sustainable philosophy (the crew needs first), we take lunch together every day, food and learning it’s covered at our corporate expenses, the crew itself cooks and serves each other, we work and invoice per hours so everybody stays efficient, also everybody it’s free to work with other parties, we have a manager for the team but each peer can assign tasks and check performance for their peers. juniors tend to become seniors quicker; as they spend more time with their peers, and finally, instead of a CEO and associates, we got a vision carrier and guardians.
yep, we live at the romantic side of the rainbow, but there’s where the unicorns co-work, so please give it a try, and rather than building a gantt, build Relationships, therefore the branch will just bloom.
