If you haven't adopted a process, you shouldn't expect things to get better. I've worked with many teams that seem to enjoy a mode of chaos. It seems to stem from the drudgery of living with a process that hasn't worked and doesn't seem to be getting any better. So, as a form of escape, the team elects to not have a formal process at all.
At the beginning, this seems to be incredibly refreshing. The team can just do the work they need to do, without putting themselves through meeting ceremonies or following specific patterns. It all seems to work well, even without any process at all! At first, the "anti-process" of chaos seems to pay off, both in the productivity and mood.
That is, at least, until things stop working. It will likely only take a short while of this anti-process approach until it will become quite apparent that pieces aren't fitting together as well as they should. In technical projects, this usually means more merge conflicts (if people were branching at all,) more code duplication, more technical debt, more missed expectations, more misaligned goals, more conflicted project architecture, and the list goes on and on. Soon, the project will come to a screeching halt or overall quality will start to degrade. Then, what you will see naturally occur is the establishment of process.
It begins subtle, with a comment like, "Hey, maybe it would be good if we all..." and the suggestion begins the process of building a process. The team is made of up smart people, and soon a process will emerge. The question is, will it be a good process?
If the team embraces continuous improvement of any kind, then eventually the process will be a decent process that fits both the team and the project. But it will generally take a long time for it to happen this way, and there will be much pain along the way.
So, instead of doing things the hard way, and eventually realizing that chaos doesn't work, and a process is needed, why not just choose a good process from the onset?
Scrumly is a repeatable process that small and medium teams, and small, medium and large organizations can choose to follow. You can adopt a working process that will help you and your team focus on being productive. And the Scrumly tool will go beyond the other "project management" tools by giving you more than just a place to store your work items. The Scrumly Process has been built right into the web-based software. So, you will be able to create a project, build a team and then follow the Scrumly process generally by just leveraging the Dashboard. Here's your typical day:
1. Login to Scrumly
2. Look at your dashboard.
3. Do the top item on your dashboard.
4. Repeat from step 2.
Because Scrumly has the process built in, you get to focus on the task at hand. And when it is time for the next task, just come back to the Dashboard and grab it.
If teams need any help getting started, we're here to help. It is free to sign up and get an account to look around, and the pricing couldn't be simpler.
At the beginning, this seems to be incredibly refreshing. The team can just do the work they need to do, without putting themselves through meeting ceremonies or following specific patterns. It all seems to work well, even without any process at all! At first, the "anti-process" of chaos seems to pay off, both in the productivity and mood.
That is, at least, until things stop working. It will likely only take a short while of this anti-process approach until it will become quite apparent that pieces aren't fitting together as well as they should. In technical projects, this usually means more merge conflicts (if people were branching at all,) more code duplication, more technical debt, more missed expectations, more misaligned goals, more conflicted project architecture, and the list goes on and on. Soon, the project will come to a screeching halt or overall quality will start to degrade. Then, what you will see naturally occur is the establishment of process.
It begins subtle, with a comment like, "Hey, maybe it would be good if we all..." and the suggestion begins the process of building a process. The team is made of up smart people, and soon a process will emerge. The question is, will it be a good process?
If the team embraces continuous improvement of any kind, then eventually the process will be a decent process that fits both the team and the project. But it will generally take a long time for it to happen this way, and there will be much pain along the way.
So, instead of doing things the hard way, and eventually realizing that chaos doesn't work, and a process is needed, why not just choose a good process from the onset?
Scrumly is a repeatable process that small and medium teams, and small, medium and large organizations can choose to follow. You can adopt a working process that will help you and your team focus on being productive. And the Scrumly tool will go beyond the other "project management" tools by giving you more than just a place to store your work items. The Scrumly Process has been built right into the web-based software. So, you will be able to create a project, build a team and then follow the Scrumly process generally by just leveraging the Dashboard. Here's your typical day:
1. Login to Scrumly
2. Look at your dashboard.
3. Do the top item on your dashboard.
4. Repeat from step 2.
Because Scrumly has the process built in, you get to focus on the task at hand. And when it is time for the next task, just come back to the Dashboard and grab it.
If teams need any help getting started, we're here to help. It is free to sign up and get an account to look around, and the pricing couldn't be simpler.