{"id":867,"date":"2008-09-24T15:06:23","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T19:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/?p=867"},"modified":"2015-12-17T13:26:27","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T17:26:27","slug":"intellectual-disintegration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/?p=867","title":{"rendered":"Intellectual Disintegration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following entry is a part of the Pattern Library<\/a>. The Pattern Library records the common patterns of events that have the potential to lead to project failure.<\/p>\n

\n

Name : Intellectual Disintegration
\n<\/strong>Scope :\u00a0<\/strong>Event pattern (patterns that shape the sequence or flow of events)<\/p>\n

In brief :
\n<\/strong>Breakdown of communications between individuals and groups results in errors and omissions.<\/p>\n

Description :<\/strong>
\nTechnology projects are large scale, complex, decentralised decision making activities.\u00a0 The decentralised nature of the work places a requirement on everyone involved to communicate effectively.\u00a0 Where groups or individuals fail to interact and communicate effectively the opportunity for invalid assumptions, errors and omissions and\u00a0duplication of effort rises sharply.<\/p>\n

The expression “Intellectual Disintegration” comes from the failure of the team to ensure that the decisions made by the different people involved are properly aligned and integrated.<\/p>\n

Typical sequence of events :<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Individuals or groups fail to collaborate or communicate effectively with each other<\/li>\n
  2. Communication failures allows groups to head off in different directions and develop different understandings of critical issues<\/li>\n
  3. Differing understandings result in “incompatibilities”, errors, omissions, invalid assumptions and other related problems<\/li>\n
  4. Failure to communicate\u00a0results in problems going undetected until late in the project (typically when the project is under integration and test)<\/li>\n
  5. High levels of rework as problems are addressed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Negative effects :<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. High rework costs due to the late breaking identification of problems<\/li>\n
    2. Finger pointing and defensiveness as misunderstandings surface.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Common Root Causes :<\/strong><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Gravitation<\/a> – some in the technology sector are more comfortable with the hard core technical aspects of the work than they are with communicating<\/li>\n
      2. Schedule pressure leads to people skipping critical meetings or\u00a0interacting with each other<\/li>\n
      3. Leadership failures (i.e. the failure to monitor the effectiveness of team communications).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Suggested Actions :<\/strong><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Ensure regular team meetings are held or other forums that encourage communication<\/li>\n
        2. Look for places where individuals or groups who should be communicating are not and address accordingly<\/li>\n
        3. Us smaller iterations to allow misunderstandings to be surfaced more quickly<\/li>\n
        4. Co-locate individuals and groups.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          The following entry is a part of the Pattern Library. The Pattern Library records the common patterns of events that have the potential to lead to project failure. Name : Intellectual Disintegration Scope :\u00a0Event pattern (patterns that shape the sequence or flow of events) In brief : Breakdown of communications between individuals and groups results […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,8],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behavioral-pattern","category-pattern","tag-pattern-in-failure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7869,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions\/7869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calleam.com\/WTPF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}