Oogiem;112275 said:
But since it's a shared project everyone knows the next action and the plan for the project and has current status. Anyone on the team can edit and change and add and delete tasks just as if it was their personal project. The weekly review for shared projects has to be shared.
Yes, you are right. For a small tight-knit team (with full openness, solidarity and trust) you certainly can get by with something that is essentially like a single-user system with many simultaneous people logged in to the shared part, or even a pure single-user system if they do not have any personal things they want to keep from the rest of the team.
If you want to collaborate with not-fully-trusted entities like other companies or even other divisions or departments within the same company, then it gets a bit trickier, but it should still be fully feasible to create a system that manages overall plans securely and also lets individuals and small high-trust work groups to fit in their own detail plans within the overall plan.
bcmyers2112;112286 said:
GTD isn't anti-scheduling, anti-prioritizing, etc. DA simply advises against putting things on your calendar that aren't truly date- or time-specific, and to avoid using priority coding. But if I were involved in a construction project and I knew I had to order certain parts prior to X date so that a certain phase of the construction could be completed by Y date, so that the project could ultimately be completed on time, I think using some kind of a due date in my task list would be a) a damn good idea and b) thoroughly consistent with GTD.
You are right. GTD fully acknowledges the hard landscape. The key factor that differentiates hard landscape from "soft landscape" is by whom those timelines have been set. If you (the GTD adherent planner) has either agreed with someone on a date or has been ordered by a superior then I think we can agree that the landscape is hard.
In an organization the landscape tends to get harder and harder the further down you go. Example: Company C has signed binding agreements with various external parties or "collaborators" for a major construction project. This landscape is hard and binding for Company C (and the other signing parties, of course) and is indirectly also binding for C's departments. Assume C has agreed a firm delivery date. Assume that department D1 will have to get something ready and hand off to D2, who will hand over to the client on the hard date agreed by C. Most likely a date will also be set for the internal handover from D1 to D2. And this will be a hard date for both D1 and D2, whether they agree to it by themselves or boss C orders it. But from C's position the date is obviously soft (arbitrary), because it is not part of the company's hard landscape.
The question in the holacracy case seems to be whether boss C should lay down a firm date for the transfer from D1 to D2, or whether the heads of D1 and D2 should agree between themselves. Or more generally, whether the boss should impose a soft date on the subordinates which then becomes a hard date for them.
Folke;112276 said:
People can figure that out for themselves, usually. And they usually know best what has been agreed with external parties for "their" projects and how much ahead or behind they think they are.
Cultures can be very different in different companies and in different countries, but after just skimming the first page of holacracy's website it sounds like normal sound management (described as new and radical, of course), and perfectly in line with GTD. It is important, though, that the boss be adequately involved in this delegated decision making - a total hands-off policy is seldom good. The boss is still required as a coach and an arbiter, and, if need be, as a decision maker.
Folke;112276 said:
... it can often be better to communicate to "everybody" what the overall goals and contractual commitments etc for all these efforts, and their current status, than to pin down in detail exactly when each particular piece of work in each single project must be done.
Communication is king. In this case the "everybody" would at least need to comprise head D1 and D2. They probably both need to be aware of all C's current projects (for a whole number of other reasons, too) and therefore should not have too much difficulty agreeing on a handover date between themselves.
cwoodgold;112280 said:
What are some other ways of communicating priority?
I think priority is part of the overall picture - all projects and statuses an the external hard landscape and the company's goals etc.
cwoodgold;112280 said:
Priority can also be communicated by a person to themself by marking "appointment with myself" on the calendar.
It seems that many people do that, but I don't. I put a little red line to the left of any tasks that I cannot afford to at least consider. I review these few tasks and my hard calendared tasks before deciding on what tasks and context I will get into next.
