Chapter 94. Share the Vision
DO YOU WORK WITH IDIOTS? Do your team members want to bankrupt the company? Sometimes it feels that way, but it's usually not the case. The truth is, everyone wants to succeed and feel proud of their contributions, no matter how much it appears that they're trying to sabotage your project. They are doing what they think is the right thing, but everyone has a different idea of what "right" is.
As the software project manager, how do you get everyone working together? Know that most teams labor in darkness. They don't know why this project matters, how it fits into the company's larger strategy, or why the deadline is June 17th. Since they don't understand why certain decisions were made, the choices appear arbitrary and irrational. Everyone struggles, trying to form a clear vision of this murky situation without any definitive information to help them. Should we be surprised that everyone see a different end goal to the project?
To clear away the fog, you need to share with your team members the key pieces of data that will make them knowledgeable about your common endeavor. Let them know that the project needs to ship in mid-June to beat a competitor's product to market by three weeks. Help them understand that this project fills a need in a larger corporate strategy to expand internationally, or that your customer is counting on it to shore ...
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