People are increasingly working in technical environments. While the technique is progressing and user interfaces (in many cases) are getting better and more intuitive, one interface still remains difficult to use: the one between human and Mensch.
Fantastic Team Creatures and Where to Find Them
A situation in a retrospective, medium-sized, international company,
German branch. A development team on the way to agility (probably still on
indefinitely) and a Scrum Master.
At the beginning of the retro(spective), the Scrum Master provides an obvious for the
Participants confusing question: “How was your seat neighbor aka colleague?
Your left in the last sprint?” The question goes around.
The software developers in this group are appalled. “How was the person next to you
me in the last 2 weeks?” the Scrum Master wants to know. Everyone looks at each other
somewhat confused, as far as that goes in a teams meeting.
After the first person more or less voluntarily started with an “I know
not exactly how person XY was doing next to me…” the team members feel
more and more involved in the task. It’s not about knowing exactly how the time
for the person was or to guess particularly precisely – it’s about empathy and
Communication, about assessment and a common feeling when assessing.
Another person in the round is blocked. “I can’t read this person, how should I know what they felt and experienced?” The person concerned immediately nods vehemently and immediately jumps for help: “Yes, I would say the same thing for myself: how should he know that about me or I about him?”
So far the excerpt of this “experiment”. (Agile) teams are now used to that
about cooperation, improving speed, various topics such as roles,
responsibilities, meaning and so on is discussed – but this exercise overwhelms many,
not all. What happened here?
Man – machine – man
People who work with technology/in technical environments often sit down, be it
Hardware or software development or something else entirely, into a relatively simple one
relation to technology. They are also often good at describing what “human
Interface” actually means: A man-machine interface or something
User interface leading to human-machine interaction in one
Man-machine system (HMI) is used. Thanks to a user interface, a human can
So come into contact with a machine, this z. B. control.
At this point, the term should be used differently. human
Interfaces mean human systems that interact with other human ones as well
technical interfaces interact, communicate, work (or also
not).
Traditionally, people are trained to program and operate machines,
to interact directly. Currently, work is developing in many areas and
Branches away from individual action towards “teamwork” and “participation”.
Bigger projects can be tackled together, together you have more perspectives,
together more skills are covered and opportunities are present. First of all
the basic assumption.
Together we are … smarter/dumber/same?
So what do these human interfaces need to work well with each other and in
Being able to work “well” in interaction with technical interfaces?
This question is not only asked by large organizations and companies, but
The challenge often begins in small start-ups with a complexity of two
or three human interfaces (plus x technical).
Hardly any time to talk to each other about everything, meeting after meeting, blurry
Limits to “free time”, there are a lot of technical and content-related topics that
keeping human interfaces busy, but also interdisciplinary things: organization,
Transformation, structure, team collaboration, customer feedback and other things that
concern the “framework” or the environment of the “system”.
In a setting or environment where people are now often remote/virtual
work, additional technical interfaces and tools are often added –
teams/Zoom, Miro/Mural and many more. During the height of the Corona pandemic
many virtual tools/working environments were a welcome relief and
Risk reduction – at the same time it was often heard that this is the “distance” between the
people have increased, the work cycle (no breaks between team meetings) increased
and have isolated the people in spite of many people; paradoxically when increasing
positive experiences: no long commute to work, no commuting, work can be done by oneself
be classified and so on.
Many companies are now asking themselves the question: back to the office for everyone – or continue in the virtual one
mode – or both?
So what to do? Doesn’t all this seem to cry out for a reduction in complexity? Everyone
probably knows 3-hour discussions that end in nothing, eternal meetings without real ones
Decisions or Resolutions (“This meeting could have been an email I
would have liked not to have read it”), communicative downward spirals in teams/between
Employees, problem trances a la “We’ve already tried all that, why now?
more chatter and meetings between people”.
Paradoxical intervention: how, which formation, not: how much
On the one hand: The cooperation of human interfaces can be designed, even under
Inclusion of technical content and tools. Mentioned here are above all and by way of example
the Liberating Structures, a set of methods that has become very popular on the fringes of
brought to the agile community without belonging to the agile methods. Of two
Canadians, as they say themselves, put together a collection of different
Methods to bring the participation of human interfaces to the fore
place; and at the same time the attempt to use very simple methods on an equal footing in the short term
To form formations that quickly generate ideas, make democratic decisions
and much more – beyond the practiced and often well-established work patterns in the
Organisation.
On the other hand: communities, voluntary and often temporary associations
human interfaces to work on specific issues, experiences
to exchange ideas, to change perspectives, to gain new options for action. Looks
you can find the current culture here, especially on the fringes of agile communities
you get a lot of interesting techniques and sets of methods, meetings, events and such
further in order to achieve things together and to strengthen the teamwork.
Large group methods can serve as further examples here
Civic support methods of the 1980s such as the almost forgotten “Zukunftswerkstatt” to Open Space, World Cafe & Co.; but also more elaborate methods such as collegial case advice or peer-to-peer learning can have a great effect in systems/organizations if the participants agree on certain edges of the playing field and a common goal (otherwise there is the danger of endless loops mentioned above ; where, cybernetically speaking, loops can be productive in and of themselves if, in each iteration, one learns something collectively from the previous one). This is now accompanied by increased joint reflection on topics such as: What is the purpose of the company? What are goals beyond profit maximization and scaling; for example “social entrepreneurship”, psychological safety of employees, improvement of work culture, equal rights, family compatibility of roles, customer orientation and feedback and much more.
And no, the question may be floating in the reading heads: this one
Perspective on work (culture) doesn’t make things any less complex, nor does it
simply; but they may create intrinsic motivation, work environments in common
more manageable and accessible, maybe even more meaningful, in the best case without
significant loss of time and other resources.