Day 21

Big day... time to get the project back on track.  Normally I would not be involved, I'd sit back, do my part, and when things fell apart try to help recover it.  This time I am actively trying to right the ship at the start instead.  I really don't like doing that, I prefer to think that everything will work out and then get annoyed when it doesn't. 

We started off class with Larry and Kim giving us some information on where they see us being at so far, and what a Team Charter is.  This is good, it sets the stage for what we need to talk about today.  When the question comes up of what is next everyone just looks around the room.  "5 minute break" I finally say.  I guess, technically, we are leaderless at the moment and that is how we should proceed.

I snag some of the other people from the weekend meeting to see what they think now that Larry and Kim have talked, the basic plan stays the same so I write the agenda down... item #0 is to pick my replacement :-)  My goal is to make sure that everyone feels that they have a voice in the process.  Picking who is going to lead the process is a good first step.  If they pick me then I have their backing, if not then they wouldn't have wanted me doing it anyways.  I get the only nomination. We move one.

I talk a bit about what happened last week and the plan is to now go around the 38 person circle and get everyone to respond to 2 questions: what do they want to get out of the project, and what do they need to feel involved.  This starts a discussion on why we are doing this.  I pointed out that each team was informed that we were going to do this, and it was up on Facebook for everyone to read.  If they were not happy with the idea then they should have said something before the meeting.  We talk a bit more.  We vote.  People are unhappy with the result so continue to argue.  Kim saves the day.  Thanks Kim.  We break for lunch.

I talk to a few people at lunch and when we come back I make it clear (I hope) that the before lunch thing was meant to help us address the issues that came out of last week - basically people not being heard and people losing trust in each other.  We won't answer the questions, but people need to keep that in the front of their minds.  We also start following one of our rules of play: you only get to talk twice on a topic.  This makes things move much faster!

Next up is the proposal to use the Lean UX process.  There are complaints about this idea too.  Apparently people just don't read things... sigh.  We vote on it, and the break off into groups of 5 for 1.5 hours to do the Lean UX process.  We actually finish early!!!1one! 

At this point in time I can see the end, and we need to move along.  I take over instead of doing things by vote.  We don't have time, and people should now feel involved.

Based on all the feedback we get a list of 6 features to do.  Time now to vote for our leaders.  I wanted a write in vote, but we decide to use a show of hands.  What is funny is that the steam that "won" last week and Maria are in all the leadership positions.. which means that we are back where we fucking started!  However now people have had a say.  I wound up running against Haig since he was the only one nominated for a position and I wanted to be sure that people chose that position too.  Thankfully they chose him and not me!

10 minutes until 5:00 and we have one last thing to do.  One person suggests that we wait for our leaders to tell us what to do.  No!  We have come this far, and there is very little left to do, and waiting for the leaders means losing another week.  We break off into teams around the features that we are interested, and the foundation team which is going to be mostly programmers deciding things like version control and directory layout.

We finish by 5:00.  Agenda done.  My voice is shot.  Off to LEGO class.