The Broad Bean

The previous weeknote was all about the need for a community of teams to change the experience of the NHS App collectively. The base comes first. Last week we considered the foundational base, our team. Everyone has joined the team at different times. Some people were around in the beginning, others joined shortly after. Many of us joined within the last two to four weeks. That’s a problem because we don’t necessarily have shared understanding, and that’s an element of dark matter that makes the work work. Starting work on anything without shared understanding is problematic because it reduces the agency of people on the team. When they can’t find their own way forward, you need more meetings and there’s the potential to fall into task management. If you want a high-performing team where people have autonomy, this means spending lots of time working together upfront. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: discovery and alpha is best when there’s good synchronicity of thought on a…