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Wavesitting. Commentary on Using Google Wave for Projects
SidGabriel — Sun, 03/28/2010 - 01:51
It was suggested that I use Google Wave for a recent project. It had been six months since the GTUG Campout at Google's Campus where I participated in a 3 day hackathon event focused on Wave. I figured it was worth another look. Back then it was simply to slow to use and people were awkward with it. We began the wave and started work on the project.
One week in, I feel a sense of disconnect from my team that I have not felt since leading teams in high school: The feeling that everyone is on board and no one knows what we're doing. For a man who makes a career of organizing, analyzing and rallying people in the support of human life, it's hard to accept, but my current project has lost the critical thread of leadership. The element I am most responsible for.
Before I go and wrangle each and every member and thread back into a manageable and productive form, I feel it is my duty to share with my readers the critical fault in using Google Wave for open development or community research projects: these are projects where no one is paid to perform a specific role the project and each member has a varying degree of attachment to the outcome of the project. They are the most common type of human project and occur most often in families and community groups.
The Critical Fault: Illusions of Unanimity
This particular case included members coming onto the team one by one and being given the task of "coming up to speed" by reading the wave. "It's in the wave" or "I'll put it in the wave" became intuitive receptacles for information. As the information flow increased, and as targets for the information became more obscure, members natural ability to see where they belong in the project and where they could contribute diminished greatly, but their feelings of "being a part of something" increased as a result of an illusion of unanimity. As of this moment, after bringing in 8 people, I have lost one and still do not have the critical elements of sub-project "owners" and criteria by which to delegate tasks to them. As the leader and only point of contact that touches the others directly, I'm the only one that knows how fractured our team structure is. As it stands we have very quickly and efficiently become factions in the service of multiple and ambiguously similar goals and only I can see it. This is a powder keg I have to go and fix. I'm writing because I could easily have overlooked this, or thought that it was a feature unique to this team. The cost would have been not only the project but the team and the opportunity we gathered around.
It's appropriate that "GroupThink" is trending on Twitter today. The cost of encouraging any member of a team, culture or society not to maintain their own independent voice and critical perspective is clear: http://twitter.com/#search?q=Groupthink
I'll look at wave again in another 6 months. Allowing a team's momentum and motivation to accelerate with multiple forms of content and realtime activity is interesting science. For now, my commentary is that it's fun to play with, but if you have anything at stake or any stakeholders: Wave at your own risk. Until someone makes the Gantt Chart wave gadget of the future (with meritocracy based micro-currency embedded), it lacks the impetus for upstream leadership to emerge.
AUDIT THE FED
AUDIT THE FED
