Drop and Code Me Twenty!

It's all a part of establishing a team vision -- a top priority at TeamworX BootCamps. Beyond its power to unify and motivate a team, a strong, shared vision works like a conceptual road map or, in McCarthy's computer metaphor, a set of design algorithms. Here's an easy example. A BootCamp team's shared vision might include the following elements: "This software is for beginners. Beginners prefer graphics to text. Beginners need more feedback to proceed." Once adopted, these elements, or algorithms, serve as guides for all team actions and decision.

A shared vision, in the TeamworX view, is the conceptual Holy Grail. It increases efficiency, boosts output and quality, maintains team spirit -- and requires something of a crusade to find. Getting a vision requires massive input from all team members about how and what each will contribute, and also about how a project reflects their core values, their fears, likes and dislikes.

Given the importance and complexity of vision-making, this is one of the few stages at BootCamp where TeamworX instructors will step in and offer a traditional lesson. In this case, intervention comes Monday night. Wearing their "management black hats," staffers come down hard, criticizing the team's proposed vision as "messy," and offering clear suggestions. The advice is snapped up, and, by Tuesday morning, the team has successfully "shipped" its first product: its vision.

Wednesday finds the camp again in chaos -- albeit of a happier variety. At stations around the Lutheran center, boot-campers are playing charades, making music, doing blindfolded finger-painting. "Creativity Day," as it's called, is multipurpose: stirring creative juices, catalyzing right-brain thinking, and providing a break from "the schedule."

And this class needs it. Tuesday afternoon, after shipping its vision, the group split into self-chosen teams and prepared for their first "deliverables." These are specific projects that must be completed in accordance with the vision, and integrated with those of other teams by week's end. But things got out of hand. TeamworX instructors kept piling on the assignments, quickly exceeding what a team twice the size could handle.

The students' puzzlement turned to alarm, then anger. The cry went up, "Bullshit!" -- BootCampers rebelled. They refused additional work, tossed assigned materials on the floor -- and gained, in the process, yet another critical lesson in project development: the virtue of "pushing back." The objective, says TeamworX's Michele Frame, is to destroy the notion of the infallible authority. Bosses can be totally wrong, deadlines totally unrealistic. Yet most employees feel compelled to sign on to unreasonable schedules, and to act as if they were realistic. Members of a healthy team nix unrealistic objectives -- or anything else that violates their shared vision. "These guys pushed back hard," says TeamworX's John Rae-Grant. "It was great."

Now, in the aftermath, in the midst of blindfolded painters and pantomime, the learning of the past three days seems to be coalescing. Walking down the dormitory hall, absently hefting an orange Nerf toy shaped like a human brain, of all things, Vikoren the Skeptic is now Vikoren the Believer. "How to put this into words," he says. "This is one of the most profound learning experiences I've ever had." He stops. "What I plan to do after this course is to reevaluate my life from top to bottom: where I live, what I do and how I do it."

He resumes hefting the Nerf brain and heads down the hall toward the cafeteria. It's lunch time.

And crunch time. With a Thursday night deadline to ship product, boot-campers begin the process of integration. Students are now fine-tuning -- "going for greatness."

Instructors feel compelled to bring out the black hats, however, over the critical issue of scheduling, the bane of software development. Even well-intentioned managers are apt to create meaningless timelines -- chronologies that have nothing to do with either the actual projects or the people who will do the work. Real scheduling is strictly "bottom up." In the world according to TeamworX, says McCarthy, "no item appears on the schedule if the person who has to execute it hasn't bought into it."

Schedules corrected, the teams deliver their "products" and celebrate as if they just released Windows 95. Friday morning at 9:30 AM, a bleary crew settles into the center's chapel for a closing ceremony. The mood is high, enthusiastic -- and anxious. All seem eager to take their new skills back to their real workplaces; each fears being perceived as strange. It's a standard issue. The TeamworX staff offers a variety of tips for dealing with "re-entry" issues (also known as "individual perceived weirdness")and even performs a hilarious skit showing how not to talk to your boss on the first day back. One suggestion: "Tell co-workers what you learned, not necessarily how you learned it."

At the same time, however, McCarthy pleads with students not to believe they can ever get back to "normal." "Get a handle on what is 'normal'," McCarthy says. "What you've experienced here, this is normal human behavior. It may not be common, but it s normal."

Paul Roberts (proberts79@aol.com) lives in Seattle and writes on business, technology, and workplace issues. You can visit Jim McCarthy and McCarthy TeamworX on the Web at (http://www.TeamworX.com)