At the Oracle Business Club meeting I mentioned in my previous post, Marc Cornelissen was invited for a presentation. I was there for networking, so I was a little skeptical at first. That changed, because his presentation was very good and full of links to our business.
Marc Cornelissen is a Dutch polar traveler and professional adventurer. He basically goes on expeditions for a living. An inspiring individual who has seen much and is able to capture an audience with his enthusiasm.
Marc talked about his expedition to the geographical north pole he and his team undertook at the end of the last century. A demanding trip of about 700 kilometers in 70 days on skis and sleds. No helpers, no dogs… pure manpower.
His presentation focused on team building, team interaction and dealing with the unknown and the unexpected. Making an analogy to doing business in the current crisis. I personally also saw a lot of parallels to running high pressure, quick win projects. A bonus.
Marc presented a number of “insights” that helped make the expedition a success. I want to share some of them because I feel they fit in IT as well. As Marc presented in Dutch, I have translated them loosely.
Leave behind and move forward
When traveling on skis to the north pole, it is important to carry as little as possible. Choosing what to bring and parting with what you won’t need. Difficult, because you go into unknown territories and you can’t know up front what you’ll need. And you cannot linger or you’ll never move. So, choose and go.
For us, building solutions for customers, the leaving behind is more a mental thing. Leaving the past behind (known solutions, past projects) is essential for progress and innovation. Bring your experience, but don’t let it limit you in your creativity or your productivity. Implementing new technologies, changing business models and especially strong customer involvement require an out-of-the-box approach.
Decide and move
This is of course a natural follow up to the previous statement. It goes one step further though. During their expedition they had to sometime choose between going through rough terrain or move around it. They would discuss the options and select a route as a team. Some team members would always pick the straight but difficult route, other would smartly pick the best route for speed.
As an experiment, they decided to let the headman choose the direction without discussion. To their surprise, it didn’t matter which choice was made. The average gain was the exactly same, whether they would go straight through the rough or carefully around it. They traveled almost 50% quicker than before.
How much time is do we loose on project meetings and one on one debates? How much more productive would we be if the discovery on ice would apply to software engineering as well?
Too often have I seen discussions over details in design or architecture. Good specialists in disagreement over the best choice to make to be more productive, better compliant to standards or more ready for the future. Discussions over alternatives that are probably both good.
I believe that working in smaller teams on projects with strong visible deadlines will help. If the urgency is felt by everybody, it’s easier to decide and move. As we should.
Speak up, Agree, Confront
This one is better in Dutch: “spreek uit, spreek af, spreek aan”. In difficult conditions, conflicts are inevitable. Especially when working with the kind of ambitious individuals you need to meet goals and make deadlines.
Make sure everybody knows to speak their mind immediately if they have a problem or a disagreement. Get the team together and talk it through. Come to an agreement that every team member confirms and stick to it. Do not except people retracing an agreement and confront team members that do.
Agree on this approach when you are building team. For team members that can or will not work like this, Marc proposed another saying: “fit in, or f%$k off”.
Reach success from a shared basis
Traveling 700 kilometers on skies over ice and on floating sleds over open water takes everything. You have to depend on your team, help each other both physically as emotionally. The mental strength needed for such a journey is enormous. You can reach your goals only if you share the same determination to reach them.
When running Agile projects, especially with a Scrum approach, a common goal is essential as well. Common within the team and shared with the customer. Success is possible only if the goal is clear and the same for everybody involved. Even when technology is new en specifications are shifting.
All in all, Marc gave me enough to think about. His book, everybody got a copy, shows these and other insights as well. I’d like to quote one piece, that I find sums it all up.
Nothing is as inspiring as traveling in unknown terrain. It sharpens the senses and forces you to constantly learn, while at the same time you more and more learn to trust your own basis and build on it.
Even though the physical experience is quite different (understatement), this is still very similar to how I feel working in IT. If you want to be innovative, you have stay on your toes, learn, adapt to changes but still trust your basic understanding of the technology.
Marc Cornelissens book “Zuiver Noord” (Pure North) can be ordered at his website.
That’s my tuppence worth…
