Effective communication is the key to successful collaboration.
In this month’s La Sauce episode, Ricky and Bastien tell you all about a project that increased the stress level of the entire team.
Pumped up by the excitement of a new year, our team welcomed a new project with the utmost enthusiasm. Except for the fact that said project had to be launched in… 4 weeks! Parachuted one by one into the project, our resources quickly saw their bubble burst when they realized the magnitude and complexity of the work they were being asked to do.
“It felt like we were being parachuted into the project with a defective parachute,” mentioned Bastien, a programmer.
Our Bubble Burst in our Faces
Not only did this project take the team out of their comfort zone, but even its most experienced members struggled to understand the project and what they were asked to do. Some questioned their own skills. Confusion and stress quietly set in. To top it all off, the entire team had to adapt to an unusual management structure.
Fortunately, at the same time, we implemented the OfficeVibe platform to take our team’s pulse and collect their feedback in real time. Quickly, as we skimmed over the employees' initial comments, this project stood out and it became clear that we had to act to rectify the situation.
Autopsy of a Burst Bubble
We quickly realized that communication problems were largely responsible for the difficulties we were having with this project. Faced with a tight schedule, we had jumped feet first into the project, without going through a kickoff, as we usually do. This shortcut immediately lead to the essential elements we needed to understand the project being miscommunicated. Over time, we also realized that the due date was not as critical to the client as we initially thought.
We quickly set up a face-to-face meeting with the client and the entire team to ensure everyone was on top of the project. Next, tasks were clearly distributed among several smaller teams.
Lesson learned: HalfSerious will never again skip a kickoff, for any project.
Communication will always be the glue that holds teams together and a great lever to ensure a project is successful (especially in hybrid mode). In hindsight, we realize that under the pressure and urgency of a mandate, we sometimes drop our good habits, but that doesn’t serve the client or the team. Today, our client comes to work in our offices several times a week, and we’ve established a way to share knowledge and information with everyone, in real time.
In this month’s La Sauce episode, Ricky and Bastien tell you all about a project that increased the stress level of the entire team.
Pumped up by the excitement of a new year, our team welcomed a new project with the utmost enthusiasm. Except for the fact that said project had to be launched in… 4 weeks! Parachuted one by one into the project, our resources quickly saw their bubble burst when they realized the magnitude and complexity of the work they were being asked to do.
“It felt like we were being parachuted into the project with a defective parachute,” mentioned Bastien, a programmer.
Our Bubble Burst in our Faces
Not only did this project take the team out of their comfort zone, but even its most experienced members struggled to understand the project and what they were asked to do. Some questioned their own skills. Confusion and stress quietly set in. To top it all off, the entire team had to adapt to an unusual management structure.
Fortunately, at the same time, we implemented the OfficeVibe platform to take our team’s pulse and collect their feedback in real time. Quickly, as we skimmed over the employees' initial comments, this project stood out and it became clear that we had to act to rectify the situation.
Autopsy of a Burst Bubble
We quickly realized that communication problems were largely responsible for the difficulties we were having with this project. Faced with a tight schedule, we had jumped feet first into the project, without going through a kickoff, as we usually do. This shortcut immediately lead to the essential elements we needed to understand the project being miscommunicated. Over time, we also realized that the due date was not as critical to the client as we initially thought.
We quickly set up a face-to-face meeting with the client and the entire team to ensure everyone was on top of the project. Next, tasks were clearly distributed among several smaller teams.
Lesson learned: HalfSerious will never again skip a kickoff, for any project.
Communication will always be the glue that holds teams together and a great lever to ensure a project is successful (especially in hybrid mode). In hindsight, we realize that under the pressure and urgency of a mandate, we sometimes drop our good habits, but that doesn’t serve the client or the team. Today, our client comes to work in our offices several times a week, and we’ve established a way to share knowledge and information with everyone, in real time.
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