Apr 5, 2011 Humans Build Product
This is the first in a series of posts focused on "human behavior" and it's impact on product development.
We work with highly skilled product development teams on a weekly basis here at Appfire. Many of these teams are building some of the best consumer-based products in the world. They're also regularly evaluating new ways to become more efficient. They realize that the product world has changed and that they must adapt to thrive... or in some cases, just to survive!
While working with our customers, I'm often asked:
"What's the most critical mistake a product development team can make?"
Given my background and what many customers know about our work here at Appfire, I would guess that they're expecting a response like: "Lack of proper tooling", or "Improper use of Atlassian's tools", or "Misalignment of tools and processes".
Indeed, these are all good answers and appropriate at times. However, I firmly believe that the most critical mistake a team can make is to underestimate or outright ignore the impact that human behavior has on product development.
As individuals, our current "mood" or emotional state has a dramatic effect on our actual performance and our ability to effectively contribute to a team. Beyond our individual emotions, teams have a collective emotion as well. Individual emotions feed into what I call "the emotional tone of a team". The emotional tone of a team not only determines how well a team will self organize, interact and work together, but it also determines how well that team will interact with individuals (or other teams) outside of their own. What I'm really talking about is understanding and improving something that goes far beyond questions like: "what tools are right for my team", or "what methodologies should our team consider adopting". This even transcends technology in use, staffing levels or funding.
Make no mistake, the emotional tone of your team has the greatest impact on your ability to innovate, create and deliver quality product to market.
Stop and think for a moment. What contributions have you made to your organization that you are most proud of? Now try to remember what your mood was throughout those efforts. Were you happy? Were you motivated? What was the emotional tone of your team? Was the team also feeling the same way?
Now think about a project, a sprint or a release where you were not satisfied with your individual contribution. How were you feeling during that process? Were you down? Were you upset by something at work or in your personal life?
There is a direct one-to-one correlation between your mood and your productivity. Understanding your mood and it's effects on your productivity is key to improving your output as an individual. Likewise, understanding the emotional tone of your team is key to improving your teams output.
Simply put, humans build product.
Reader Comments (1)
Add this one to the "Best of the AppFire Blogs" list. On the nose!