No, no, look, you read the title wrong. It’s not communication struggles with Simo Ahava. Simo isn’t struggling with communication. He’s trying to discuss communication struggles. But, obviously, he’s struggling to communicate them.
If coming up with a (sloppy) podcast title is hard, then managing communication in an organization is doubly so! In this podcast episode, Simo does a solo run on how communication structures really make or break your organization’s capability to deliver.
Any (recurring) mistake that happens in the organization is typically a symptom of a communication breakdown somewhere upstream. These are often very tricky and time-consuming to locate, so it’s easier to just blame the tool or the individual that broke the thing for, well, breaking the thing.
But blaming (or fixing) the last point of contact is often counter-productive, as it doesn’t address the real cause of the issue. And the real cause, according to Simo, is in most cases a broken communication structure. That’s how Conway’s Law starts to manifest in organizations that are not equipped to deal with communication issues properly.
In this episode, Simo share’s with you his theories about these communication breakdowns as well as some ideas for how to start fixing them.
Listen to the episode using the player or find it in your favorite podcast service.
Topics
- 00:00:00 – Introduction
- 00:08:09 – Conway’s Law.
- 00:10:24 – Examples of bugs and incidents that manifest communication struggles.
- 00:14:17 – What can be done to fix communication structures in the organization?
- 00:15:32 – Introducing agile methodologies to the organization’s workflows.
- 00:16:55 – Daily standup meetings as the instant cure to the organization’s communication ailments.
- 00:18:37 – Demos to show what everyone has been working on.
- 00:19:32 – Retrospectives to analyze and inspect internal processes.
- 00:21:05 – Alternatives to agile methods.