Tech Musing #2: How To Speed Your Team Up (By Slowing Them Down)

https://dzone.com/articles/how-to-speed-your-team-up-by-slowing-them-down

Summary

In the article, the author who is also a project manager explains the complications that come with attempting to speed up your team. He explains that while the team he was managing was producing quality work, he was told daily that his team was not delivering fast enough. Naturally he began instructing them to cut corners on quality, work longer hours and simply work faster. While the work began to be delivered faster, it began to include low quality features and unstable code. Ultimately it resulted in unhappy customers, team members and executives. He soon realized that cutting quality and working long hours led to personal misery, crappy products and team attrition rather than speed. This led him to examine his methodology and learn that in order to speed up, you have to to slow down first and learn what speed is. Speed is made of throughput and cycle time. Throughput is how much work you are able to do in a given time period while cycle time is how much time it takes to complete a single item of work. He explained if throughput is rushed beyond a reasonable capacity, it will lead you to system breakdowns and ultimately lower throughput. Cycle time is important because even if you may be producing quality products and maximizing throughput, performance will be low if cycle time is too long. The best method of increasing throughput is by limiting work in progress. Do not take on too many projects at once. Decreasing cycle time is a more difficult task but ultimately the best method is placing resources where the most valuable time can be spent and keeping your backlog clean. These tips will aid in speeding up your team to capacity.

Relevance

Project management is one of the core concepts covered in Systems Analysis and Design. Given the author of the article is a project manager and is speaking from experience gives us a unique perspective. From experience he was able to share his experience working with a team that was producing positive numbers but was still being pressured. While his intentions as their leader were good, he pressured his team to be more efficient which in turn affected them negatively. They began delivering subpar projects that did not meet customer or executive standards. Instead by evaluating two core concepts, he was able to maximize quality output by his team and meet the expectations.

Importance

As a MIS professional, this experience provides valuable information because you could potentially encounter a very similar situation. Whether you are a project manager at the time or being led by a project manager, understanding these concepts could help you significantly contribute to your team and stand out from other professionals. As a project manager, having this experience would prevent you from making a similar mistake and instead using the information to your advantage when addressing your team. Essentially the skills described are the keys to successfully leading your team. As a member of a team, sharing these ideas or concepts could help you stand out from other members. It would demonstrate to your project manager that you are focused and completely invested in the team.