PROJECT PARENTHOOD Family Sync-Meetings
by Geof Lory
 One
of the key elements of highly effective teams is clearly defined roles
and responsibilities. In many books, articles and talks covering the
topic of teams, this is a recurring theme. It stands to reason that it
is difficult for many parts to function as a single whole if a shared
understanding of "who is doing what/when to produce what" doesn't
exist. The execution or common practice of these expectations becomes
the every day living that maximizes the collective capabilities of the
team.
In teams where the activities are repeated over and over again, such as
in a play or a dance routine, the specific roles and associated
responsibilities are usually well-defined. They are part of the script
(read plan for project management). The practices and rehearsals for a
play focus less on the individual roles and more on how the roles
interface. The transitions between the roles, like the hand-offs in a
project, become the area of focus. Each team member understands their
general deliverable and is left free (under the guidance of the
director), to perform their role as well as possible. However, each
team member is responsible to the rest of the team to be at a certain
place on stage, deliver certain lines, and prepare for the hand-off to
the next performer. Properly executed, the audience sees a fluid and
seamless performance.
As you might imagine, I see our family as a team, albeit a small team,
but not that much smaller than many teams I work with in my consulting
practice. As a team, our family has the potential for both highly
effective performance as well as total dysfunctionality. I have seen
both sides many times, but we have put in place a strong and commonly
accepted set of guidelines around roles and responsibilities that keeps
us largely in the highly effective space and avoids most of the
dysfunctional abyss.
As you would with any other team, our family team starts with the
strengths of each individual to try and fit their responsibilities with
what they do well and enjoy most. This inspires them to stick to their
strengths and motivates them to perform their role to the highest level
of quality. That's because they take personal ownership for their
deliverables. The definition of each deliverable they are responsible
for is clearly stated so there are no surprises or misunderstanding.
Each effectively negotiated deliverable becomes the interface between
the roles.
I have countless examples, and they continue to occur almost every
week, where an ineffective or vague description of the expected outcome
has led to undesirable deliverables and sometimes degraded to
dysfunctional behavior. Since clearly stated deliverables (requirements
and specifications), are difficult and time-consuming to create,
especially in an environment as informal and dynamic as a family, we
use the equivalent of a sync-meeting to manage our weekly interfaces.
During these sync-meetings, which occur regularly at Sunday dinner, we
accomplish two things - one very practical and the other developmental.
First, on the practical side, we pull out a large monthly calendar that
hangs on the refrigerator, right next to other convenient necessities
like the shopping list and other family reminders. Erika is in charge
of documenting the meeting discussion and she facilitates it as well.
The phone is ignored and she keeps everyone focused and on task with
her gentle but persuasive technique. She enjoys being in charge and
relishes the rare opportunity as the second child to run the show.
It's my and Beth's job to clarify outcomes. We go through the upcoming
week, day by day, and Erika documents on the calendar everyone's
activities. Each person is asked not only to express what they have
going on, but how that will affect someone else or what they might need
from someone else. This continues until we reach the following Sunday.
Items not expressed during this sync-meeting are considered "out of
scope" and are negotiated separately as they occur. (More on our change
management process in a future article.)
The second thing accomplished during these sync-meetings, focused more
on development, is that we have a chance to learn through practice.
* We learn to surface our needs clearly and express them in terms
of their impact on the rest of the team. Saying you have dance practice
and saying you need a ride to dance practice are two entirely different
needs from the perspective of the only two drivers in the family, Beth
and me.
* We learn to respect the deliverables of others as equally
important as ours. This is a challenge for two teenage girls who are
still learning that the world does not revolve around them and their
lives.
* We learn to temporarily turn off or ignore the distractions of
the phone, the TV and other interruptions and focus on the task at hand.
* We learn to negotiate respectfully. This is a work in progress,
and as you might expect with two teenage girls who are as different as
can be, it challenges all my meeting facilitation skills on a regular
basis. However, the more we all practice, the better we get.
* We learn the natural limitations of time and resources and how
they affect our individual deliverables. Somewhere in all their needs
and wants, schoolwork and our jobs still have to get done. The girls
have learned to explore alternatives for better use of time, money and
resources to pursue their interests. Although sometimes we feel like
chauffeurs, I like to remind them we are more like taxis. You pay to
ride and the fee is always negotiable.
We learn all this in the context of the safest environment possible -
the family. We have found it is one of our greatest exercises, and is
irreplaceable in building the trust and respect necessary for our team.
When we started this practice many years ago and the girls were much
younger, it was a challenge to maintain their attention long enough to
get any information out of them. (Perhaps this sounds like some of your
customers or project sponsors, unavailable or unable to express their
requirements but expecting them delivered just the same.)
We have all learned the benefit of the Sunday dinner calendar
sync-meetings, and have come to rely on the central communication the
calendar provides. Whether you use a project web site, some team
collaboration software, or good old fashion sync-meetings, providing a
deliberate and consistent forum for clarifying the responsibilities
between the roles is essential to creating teams that operate well.
The best part? Our sync-meeting tool cost a mere $1.99
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