The Handbreak Effect

Wow, it’s been quite a while since I last wrote, roughly two weeks. But, here I am, with some new experiences to share. My idea of blogging isn’t so much about regularity, or even consistency, as it is about exploration and self-discovery. If I have nothing to say, I won’t force anything out, just because I “should”. When I first started this blog there was so much I wanted to share, so many thoughts and ideas. While in the beginning I claimed to write only for me, it was a half-truth. In reality I had an agenda and the plan was for this blog to generate a little side-income … haven’t we all been there?

Anyway. I’ve kind of dismissed that idea and will now use it for sharing perhaps more worthwhile experiences rather than continually ranting about this and that. Perhaps it will actually be more useful. So, without further ado, todays blog post: The Handbreak Effect.

The Project – Story Backdrop

I’m currently working in a big project as a project manager for a sub-project of the big one. I manage about 15 people and have done for about 7 months now. It’s unfortunately an incredibly messy project, and when I joined they had already been at it for about two years. Yeah, the project have now been running for almost 3 years, and still not managed to deliver anything. From an early start it seemed to me as if they had done absolutely everything wrong and I think, after seven months I was right. Requirements have never been properly set and baselined, stakeholders seem to not actually really care about participating in their own project and on it goes.

I had to start from scratch, and try to figure out what we were actually meant to be doing. Looking back, what I should have done when I first realized that the project was in such a bad shape was to pull the break and say, STOP!

Pulling the Handbreak

Unfortunately we don’t do this often enough, ever. It’s so easy to get fixated on a goal, deadline or target and almost completely loose sight of what’s going on around us. We allow ourselves to be consumed by the chaos around us, stubbornly continuing as if stopping is not an option. In reality it might actually be the most effective, and even necessary, solution to bring order to the chaos. What might seem like chaos may in reality actually only be what I refer to as localized chaos. If we step back, or simply stop, approach the situation from a birds eye perspective we might realize that the chaos is not really chaos, it’s really only about lack of clear communication or sense of direction.

Chaos is in my opinion generally only something we experience if we’re in the middle of it. If take a few steps back, or actually, move closer to what we believe is the center we might actually get clarity. I believe chaos is only a consequence of unresolved issues, or problems. It seems to me we have a tendency to circle around a problem never quite reaching to the core. It’s like a round-about where each time you try and turn off another car pulls in front, forcing you to continue driving and on it goes. But if we simply stop, which may seem like a crazy thing to do, it might allow us enough time to figure out how to get out of this circle and then approach the problem from a different angle.

Overcoming the Problem

More often than not, problems can be overcome as long as we don’t approach it like we normally do. To do that we need to pull the handbreak and reassess the situation. If we were to continue moving forward, we’re diverting attention and it will become incredibly difficult to see the situation for what it is because our attention is not at the actual problem but rather the chaos. We might be concerned with the demands of those around us, and loose sight of what’s important.

Obviously a better solution is to never get into this situation to begin with, but that’s a fools statement. All it takes to find oneself in a “bad” situation is to make enough small changes, for a long enough period of time and what at first seemed unlikely may now in fact be likely or even reality. More often than not we’re successful when we do an “iterative” development process which should mean small changes, often. One big, revolutionary, change rarely succeeds. It’s the combination of many small changes that allow us to build something. Ops, got carried away here, better return to the topic at hand.

When we’re faced with chaos we need to realize that the chaos is not the problem. The real problem is that we allow ourselves to stay in the chaos not taking that very important step back… if on the other hand we do allow ourselves to step out of the chaos we can better observe what we perceived to be the problem and actually more easily identify what needs to be done to solve the “chaos”.

Chaos is a consequence of our inability, or failure, to change our perspective. Handbreak, step back and reassess.