The Tale of Two Teams
Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a land far, far away, there were two teams, umm, I mean villages. They were run by one manager, I mean one powerful king. He didn't have many rules for his villagers, just one, "do whatever it takes to ship". For his villagers, this gave them a lot of freedoms and they did many things that helped them to ship. They wrote a lot of new cool features. They worked many hours and had many late night "parties" to keep morale up. Every day was different because some days the village needed more blacksmiths, yet other days they needed more farmers. They could move between roles but couldn't really do one role very well. But this kept them excited to work in the village and even with those long hours, they were very enthusiastic about working, making progress, and shipping. And they always shipped something. Maybe it wasn't exactly what they needed to ship or when they needed to ship, but they did ship.
One day, there was a battle and the king got overthrown by a king from a neighboring land. He had a new plan for the villages in this kingdom. He had two sons and assigned one as the prince of one village and the other son to the other village. He asked both sons to "do whatever it takes to ship". Both sons met with their villagers. The first son allowed a portion of his villagers to stay and banished the rest. He then sent word across the land for new people to join his village. He was clear about what village jobs were available. The second son was very disappointed by his brother's action to banish so many good people and kept his village intact. Both sons, being raised with the same values as their father, the new king, worked on their village and with their villagers to make improvements. They knew that they needed to ship faster and ship the right things. So they clearly spelled out each villager’s role and responsibilities. They held people accountable for doing their own job and for making suggested improvements. For example, if the farmer couldn't tend to all his fields, he shouldn't ask the blacksmith to help because then the blacksmith falls behind in his duties, and honestly the blacksmith wouldn't do as good a job farming as he would "blacksmithing". Instead the farmer needed to have a clear ask on needing more workers in his fields. Or he needed to innovate for more equipment to do his harvesting. Or even consider asking other farmers from neighboring villages in the kingdom to help, but not blacksmiths. The two new princes also believed that working long hours and having late night festivities only encouraged more long hours and wasted money. Long hours of work led to poor family life and a less happy village. With some initial planning on the work that needed to be done, the villagers could work smarter instead of longer, and planning became a very critical law across the land.
Months later, the king came to visit each son's village. In the village where the banishment had occurred, the king was very impressed by the progress. Everyone was following the new value system and adhering to the rules very easily. The new villagers did this with no pushback or concern because that was just how the village was run. They didn't know any other way because they weren't villagers during the era of the previous king. And their enthusiasm for following the rules of the new prince, especially the critical law about planning, helped the older villagers move forward with this new change of values. Although there were rough moments as the new and old villagers worked out how best to serve the prince, after those initial few months, the village worked very smoothly and they were well on their way to shipping. Then the king went to the village of his other son, the one that did not banish anyone. This prince was having another town meeting. These had become regular occurrences that needed to happen so that he could explain his value system and rules again to help his villagers serve him better. He had to over-communicate his ideals. Slowly, small portions of his villagers could determine what they needed to change to server the prince better. But this was a long, hard road that didn't yet show any significant results. Most of the villagers were set in their ways. They had spent years working in the village under the ruling of the old king so this new value system was considered foreign and flawed. There was resistance, constant pushback, and lots of questioning of authority. In this village, the dungeons were beginning to fill with villagers who were against the new rule. But there was progress as some villagers stayed open-minded about the new value system and at least a little progress was being made.
When the king saw the state of his second son's village, he was concerned and a bit shocked. Why is it that the village with more people that were banished actually had higher morale and more productivity? It was because the villagers moved forward with change without as much resistance. Sometimes change is difficult. And the princes approached the process of making large changes in different ways, with different results.
Eventually, the first village shipped something. And then the king removed his second son from the role of prince and put the prince of that more productive village in the role of king over all the land including both villages. Of course, this may have led to more banishment, and more productivity.
All we know for sure is that over time they all lived happily, ever after...and shipped many great things.
For me, this far away, fairy-tale land was called Windows.
Comments
- Anonymous
September 05, 2010
Great story !!! ^^