Social Project Management. Or Temporary Tribes.

So. I am writing a book about “Temporary Tribes“. And yes, there is a glossary for the words I use.

Groups that together pursue the fulfillment of a certain outcome. And after they reach their goal, they stop being a group. A good example of temporary tribes are project teams. People working together to accomplish a desired outcome.

If I would aim at just projects, I might call the book “Social Project Management“. However, I will miss out on movements started to create a change in law. Other examples of temporary tribes.

But what if I would focus on projects? What might a conceptual model of Social Project Management look like? I choose to focus on culture and identity and their role in interaction and collaboration as mechanism for resilience in temporary tribes (like projects). Hence the prefix “social” to PM.

Starting Again With Temporary Tribes.

So. Projects are temporary tribes. As a reminder, a summary from the introduction.

People don’t know each other. There is a short period to create the desired outcome. Interaction is largely digital. Stress is put onto the tribe, so resilience is required.

We need a mix of cognitive diversity for problem solving and homogeneity for operating as one. The members need to be able to operate with multiple mental models without reducing their own convictions. We need enough transparency for decision making while still providing the members with enough comfort.

This will require that the purpose of the tribe and the rules are easy and fast to understand. It will require that there is a healthy bonding between the members but still enough safety to express your individual identity to broadcast your strength.

On the level of collaboration I focus on the use of metaphors, storytelling, co-creation, visualization and game play. This is to enhance communication, social bonding and creativity for problem solving.

Yes. This is different from running a project with people in the same room that all know each other for a longer period of time. If effective communication depends increasingly on reliable social cues, and the leadership style will focus more on  social context for inspirational and intellectual stimulation, well, heck yeah, things will be different.

For this to work I think we need communication platforms that support this shift in importance of social cues and context. And that we need practices that are tuned in using social cues and context effectively. Of course it not just about “tools”. But people enable what you can do in a project. If tools enhance the abilities of people, those tools become more than “just tools”.

The discipline of Project Management shows us the importance of addressing questions like:

• What does “done” look like?
• How do we get there?
• How do we know how far we are?
• Who are the Stake Holders?
• How is the temporary tribe organized and different from The Natives?

The issue becomes how we can have a productive collaboration towards a certain goal in a temporary tribe while getting the benefits from addressing the PM issues?

A Conceptual Model.

I choose to focus on culture and identity and their role in interaction and collaboration as mechanism for resilience in temporary tribes. Per Wising from ProjectPlace.com actually made me aware (thanks!) of the fact that one of my postings on culture in projects could function as a conceptual model for Social PM.

• The quest is the goal of the project. I call it “quest” as it also applies to other forms of temporary tribes.
• The small circles are the individual team members. The arrows between them represent their interaction.
• The rules of engagement are the set of rules the group agreed upon for the way they interact.
• The tribe leader can use a mix of rituals, badges (visual clues), motivation, facilitation, communication and setting the example to ensure interactions and quest are followed as agreed (explicit and implicit) by the tribe. See the section about bootstrapping at the end of this post.
• The individual storyline is the combination of the “history” of the person and the profile (a snapshot of who he is at this moment, the current role or expertise). The storyline moves into the direction of a persons ambition.

But this provides just a part of the story. Temporary tribes operate within a context. They change an organization or a country. They operate within a larger social system.

Just like an individual, an organization, or the overarching social system, has a storyline made of reputation and ambition. However they also have a Challenge. This can be either a threat or opportunity that is the cause or reason for the existence of the temporary tribe.

Storylines are essential in a my world view. They provide the social cues and context for interaction and collaboration. Storylines are were identity enters the concept of temporary tribes. More about this topic in this post about cues and interaction.

Bootstrapping Culture.

How do you “create” a culture? “Creating” a culture can be creepy. Having to be committed to the corporate manifesto, having a shared enemy, awkward rituals. But I have written a lot recently about bootstrapping, the art of revealing a culture.

I have mentioned five exercises that can be used for this purpose. Exercises that focus on the above mentioned PM questions (e.g. what does done look like?) and focus on storytelling, metaphors and visualization.

The reasoning behind this is that:

• Metaphors stimulate creativity and communication.
• It provides a shared vocabulary and mental model (part of a culture)
• Different way of looking at things
• Less intimidating than more “official” language
• It is a vehicle for explanations
• Reframing. To avoid people answering in ways they assume is expected, you can use a metaphor for your endeavor and frame all activities in an entirely different setting. One where there are no rules about how people ought to behave.

I hope this provides some structure in a sometimes complex story.