See communications and delivery as separate but a part of the same customer-centric whole

It's all part of the same thing,
we just don't know the difference sometimes
but we have to create and define it.

Most projects are tough because there are two main and competing parts to them: doing the work (adding value) and communicating about the work (selling).  I wrote about these two things yesterday.  When we're in roles like project manager or business analyst, we have to do both and can't focus on just one or we'll fail. 

One time at Microsoft I focused exclusively on delivering the value and failed because I didn't spend enough time on communications and change aspects with the customer (I had no time or willingness to, either, so serves her right...). 

On the flip side, dealing exclusively on with the selling aspects is the same as analysis paralysis and we shouldn't just want to sit there and talk about it all day: that's not the goal either.  So there must be some kind of balance between these two things.

I think we're lucky: Scrum makes communications a daily occurrence through standups and has a standard process and roles for communications.  Scrum fixes the time of communications and gives most of  the time to the development team to do their work.  In the meanwhile, management and planning activities happen in parallel. 

In Scrum there's a clear and defined way of communicating and this is necessary.  Many new projects don't have this structure and need to get it as soon as they can.  So, in summary, we need to have the role of delivery, the role of sales, and then a defined and clear relationship between them.  Get it!!

Teams can grow without increasing in count

Grow, baby, grow.
(Just don't necessarily multiply, please.)

Growth is a funny thing.  It can happen in your mind or in the physical world.  Growth can be seen as in increase in a population: it can be seen as an increase or improvement in anything.

I made the point to a colleague yesterday that our team can grow even if we don't add people to it.  It sounded profound to me and he agreed.

What I meant by this was that the thing that matters more than anything that our team (regardless of its size or members) grows and learns and improves.  It would be nice if it grew in terms of count and influence but that is not my current need or expectation.  I am trying to do just the basic things and make sure we have a plan and are tracking.

Team-building is difficult but can be extremely fun and rewarding.  Growing in any way positive is a great goal but we have to remember that we have to control growth as well.

Control is a challenging part of growth.  You don't want to grow too fast because it is painful.  You don't want to grow uncontrollably because it is scary.  You want to grow 'just enough' so that you are meeting your objectives and doing the right things.  You want to fit and be the right size within your environment.  You don't want to get too big and consume too many resources: this is not sustainable.

So next time you consider growing a team, or anything for that matter, consider that you might already have enough and that it is internal reflection, collaboration, and communication between the existing organism that needs to grow.