The software project I’m currently leading at my place of employment is complex. The user has many different aspects of operation to interface with: situational awareness (map with real-time data feeds from other systems), real-time hardware feedback, status of more than a dozen hardware components, diagnostic messages, real-time video feed and recording, video tracking, and computationally intensive post-processing. Sound challenging? Here’s the kicker: we’ve got to be able to do it without keyboard or mouse on a 12-inch touch screen and video game controller.
Taking some of our basics from a previous generation product that spread across three computers, we created a solution to allow the user to be able to perform all these functions. My team and I have been discussing how to give the user rich functionality while simplifying the interface. The strategy we arrived at has four facets: 1) to provide the user with a number of different views that are easy to switch between, 2) to free up screen space by hiding or moving items that weren’t necessary, 3) automate as much as possible, and 4) make the hand controls and touch screen interface as simple and intuitive as possible. The design turned out to be elegant and I’m thrilled it worked out. (I will admit, though, that I’d still prefer to be working with a 15-inch plus screen.)
But don’t let me get distracted. My purpose in writing is not about the destination, but about the journey. My aim is to write about how we arrived at the design. We decided the best way to flesh out our design was to sit down together in a small conference room and shoot ideas back and forth. As one of us would bring an idea forward, an incomplete solution, another would build on it. After we had a solution we liked for one aspect of the design, we moved to the next. We did this over and over again for all the operational aspects of the application, jumping back and forth between them until we finally had a workable design. As we worked, each of us realized that none of us could have done this alone. We realized that the whole was truly greater than the sum of its parts. We were experiencing true synergy that led to some superb innovation.
Reflecting on the experience later, I made a list of the conditions that had to be present for that experience to take place.
- Everyone has to be willing to share ideas.
- Everyone has to be willing to listen to new ideas.
- Everyone has to be willing to accept that their ideas are subject to revision
What do all three conditions have in common? It has to be safe.
What do I mean by safe? The environment had to be emotionally safe. This doesn’t mean that all of us have to be therapists, but does mean that each of us has to be able to demonstrate respect for others and be conscious of their respect for himself. Let me ask you this: Are you willing to share ideas in a hostile environment, where you know your ideas are not likely to be taken seriously? Can you listen to others if you have to wonder what hidden agenda is behind their suggestion? Are you willing to express ideas you feel others will tear down? Of course not. You have to know that those standing next to you trust and respect you before you’ll express your true opinion, listen with an open mind, and allow your ideas to be built upon by others.
That naturally begs the bigger question: How do you create that kind of environment? That’s a subject for a different post, but in a word, as a leader, you have to possess and exude those qualities yourself, then step in when team members violate that atmosphere.
That day in the conference room, we moved beyond ourselves individually and accomplished as a team what none of us could have individually. By cultivating respect, sharing ideas, listening with an open mind, and accepting change, your team too can rise to surmount challenges you never thought possible.