Slow Agile — Part One: A New System

This is a story about two opposite philosophies teaming up. It suggests a system to hack your motivation toward side projects that involves collaborators without compromising quality. At the end, you will be able to read the sequel story, which demonstrate that this system really works.

I read this article Systems vs. Goals by Flavio Rump and right after I automatically started writing this: my first Medium story. His article is telling why you should apply a system rather than having just goals to keep you motivated. I have been struggling lately with my motivation toward my side projects so I came up with a hybrid system. The key behind its success is the right amount of pressure on people in order to create natural motivation.

My struggle

I found that I am really motivated in the long term when I have other people involved. It is really rewarding to share victories with people you work with. More importantly, I really don’t want to let them down. It kind of put on my shoulders the pressure I need. Unfortunately, pressure over a side project seems to make most of people let down, willingly or not. I tried to motivate collaborators by involving them constantly, showing them the work I did, suggesting them articles to read, etc. The more I went toward them, the more they moved back. I was being a bully even with good intention. There was too much pressure on them and I was beginning to feel too much pressure as well. So I asked myself:

What would be the best way to motivate people in order to motivate myself with the right amount of pressure on each one of us?

I came up with a hybrid system.

Let me tell you my story.

Collaborators

Five months ago, I was able to start working on a built world transmedia concept with a new partner. We wanted to start with a fictional psychological thriller podcast first. We had all these crazy ideas and all the motivation needed to make a blitz. We were able to put in almost 100 hours worth of work in an Airtable document to elaborate this world. We had everything centralised. This was a huge step already and that was great. Then he started being quite busy. Another project falling down. I had enough of this recurring situation.

I spent my time thinking of a way to make my side projects work. When I came up with this whole system I am telling you about, I found a way to fuel myself within this side project, alone. The scope if our transmedia podcast was a bit too much for myself. So I came up with a simple idea: I can build on top of that world we created since it has a lot of content and start a baseline side project: a side short story. That is what I did three weeks ago. This side project is easy to do and there is no pressure around it. I could do just that without my partner. Until now, I have written down about 6000 words. I have been writing not more than an hour a day on my iPhone with Scrivener. I like to keep working on this short story.

I know my partner will be back someday. In three months? In one year? In three years? It does not matter. We did enough work together to help me work on it while he is away. When he comes back, I will handle him a draft and I will say: ‘’Here buddy, tell me what you think when you have time.’’ Just the fact of having an evolving and healthy project with a partner around helps me feel great. Jeff helped me out with my motivation just by staying a collaborator. That’s all.

Thanks Jeff.

Slow movement

I have other side project ideas. I crave to work with people: video games, boardgames, music studio projects, digital applications or Websites, to name a few. I was creating many projects because I thought one of them would work out someday. The fact is that they are all on hold. This is reality and this is OK. Looking at it differently, I understood that when a side project is on hold, it gives me enough time to make some research and make my ideas grow slowly, without pressure. This triggered my motivation. I could pick and choose whatever I want to work on. It is OK if a side project does not kick off right away. Every valuable ideas are centralised in Airtable.

Slow movement is all about taking time to create quality products slowly. We have been conditioned to make everything happen with high amount of efforts. But the brain shows us that it needs time to process ideas and information. Cognitive overload is a killer. It is crucial to not overdo it, otherwise it creates pressure and we become inefficient.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, going slower is something that we start looking for nowadays. Technology moves fast. Maybe too fast for us to adapt accordingly. That is another reason why we need to take our time. With this in mind, it leaves us with the energy for crazy fast sprints when the time comes. This is motivating!

Did I say crazy fast sprints in a paragraph about slow movement? Yeah, I did!

Agility

Beside that big transmedia side project and its related short story I am currently working on, I am slowly creating a side project collective to feed my need to create with people more often. That is the whole point here, right? This initiative aims to create multiple tiny side projects and launch them really fast.

How to get buy in from collaborators?

I can’t force people to work. I learned that by trying to motivate them too much. I told myself that motivation has to come from them and I have thought of a system that could help us out. The secret seems to be behind the right amount of pressure that comes naturally from the inner self.

The first project of the collective is very promising. I have found my first collaborator, Travis, which is an old colleague from Netmath. Within a hour, I presented him a Chrome Extension idea I have been slowly thinking about. I also told him about the hybrid system to approach this side project:

Creating side projects that contain an extreme value proposal whenever collaborators are motivated. No pressure, no risk and no money investment. Each collaborator must work under sprints of 8h for each mvp. Very low scopes and low or no maintenance.

I never had a bigger interest from a potential collaborator. I knew I had a good idea that fitted right in this system. It was my first attempt to convince someone joining me in this collective and it got his attention like I wished. Couple days later, we had a testable prototype after five hours of design and development. The sprint of a maximum of eight hours seemed to put the right amount of pressure on us. Enough time to create something valuable and not enough time to discourage us. It fueled our motivation.

It was working!

Conclusion

Slow agility seems like a paradox at first, but closely, it makes sense. Going slow helps me with my motivation in the short term due to the reduced pressure over my head. The first collective side project shows signs of promise. It is good news for the long term. Where too much pressure would have killed the Chrome Extension opportunity, not enough pressure would have done nothing.

The fusion of slow and agile gives birth to a system that generates motivation under the right amount of pressure. Slow movement tends to create stronger roots while agility speeds up the growth of leaves. The right balance for a healthy side project.

The gem behind my story is that I am able to have multiple side projects growing slowly with collaborators, a relationship with a wonderful woman, time for my friends that have babies, see and talk to my parents, go on vacation, watch movies a couple times a week, play to Hearthstone or Faeria, go in a park, take a walk, cook, work, climb,… More importantly, I have succeeded to motivate someone else and myself with the right amount of pressure on both of us.

My dream is that this collective evolving in this system let a group of person work freely upon will 25 hours a week, pay their bills with it and take all the time to enjoy life.

Take away

Take your time to come up with ideas and sketches. Let the creative process take roots slowly. Remove any pressure on yourself and work when you are motivated on projects that get your interest. Take three years to write down a synopsis or notes. Let ideas grow qualitatively in you rather than forcing them out quantitatively. This is slow! Then when you really feel that the roots are strong enough, that you really believe in your idea, try creating something as quick as possible. Show it to your people and ask for feedback and keep adjusting quickly. Don’t give a damn if it is ugly or bad. Failing is good. Fail fast and fail often. More importantly: understand why you fail. This is agile! The mix of both these philosophies could work for you too.

Will this system be successful in the long term?

If you really find this hybrid system to hack your motivation, please feel free to follow me or comment as I will write more about how it evolves. It is only the beginning and I need your thoughts.

Update 10.10.17

So far this system is working for me. My first attempt is a success. If you want to know more about how it turned out, please read the second story.

Thanks for reading.
Tommy