What does a goal do?
Does it:
- Reflect the problem to solve?
- Provide direction and decision-making principle?
- Describe the desired end state?
Async work & social skills
Social skills are the best indicator of team performance. The higher the social intelligence of teams members the more like that team will achieve more than the sum of it’s parts.
Asynchronous and remote work removes a lot of what we traditional regard as social skills. Things like reading a facial expression or tone of voice to understand a person’s emotional state become almost impossible when interactions are conducted via asynchronous communications.
So, how to reconcile these? How to improve social intelligence in a team that doesn’t interacting ‘socially’? How to bring together the benefits of a high performing team with the benefits of modern digital remote and asynchronous working practices?
Modern knowledge ways of working are all about mixing multiple methods and models
Teams can’t just be ‘Agile’, or use ‘Design Thinking’, or have any single method or model as their primary way of working anymore. Now teams differentiate by how they mix methods and merge models.
Two essential thinking skills
Causal chains: A leads to B, which leads to C.
Trade-offs: An increase to A will create a decrease to Z.
One step beyond: the ascent of mountain runner Kílian Jornet
Is this what a 21st Century Outsider looks like? Extreme to the mainstream, influencer to the fans?
Better coordination, or better software?
“To minimize coordination, establish boundaries and the few interfaces that cross them. Work carefully on those interfaces: document them thoroughly, and test on both sides.”
https://jessitron.com/2021/08/02/better-coordination-or-better-software/
Theory of change
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_change
https://knowhow.ncvo.org.uk/how-to/how-to-build-a-theory-of-change
https://datajourney.akvo.org/blog/how-to-design-a-theory-of-change
https://www.artsculturefinance.org/resources/theory-of-change/
https://www.thinknpc.org/resource-hub/ten-steps/
http://www.dmeforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/08071320ApplyingTheoryofChangeApproach.pdf
Two approaches to logical problem solving
Problem solving techniques with causal chain of logic, that is one step is directly the result of another.
Outcomes
Start with what you want to achieve and then work backwards identifying the steps required.
Problems
Start with understanding the problem and then work forwards taking steps to let the solution emerge.