Scrum for the rest of us...

Hybrid and Remote teamwork are now the standard. It's not up for debate.

Platforms like Slack and Teams have been rebranded as Digital Headquarters (DHQ) and while they are awesome and fully featured... it's not clear how the revolutionary shifts from in-person to remote-work have been positive for our sanity, productivity, or focus.

Personal view (and I'm a little jealous)

Developers and Product teams have enjoyed the wonder of a different way of working for over 20 years.

In many cases, product teams adopt a Scrum-ish type of working environment.

In such environments, the team members are given a week to a month of self-organized, mostly open calendar time for focused work, to complete the tasks assigned for that period (known as a sprint). The only meetings expected of the team are focused on designing the sprint, reviewing the work completed, and possibly a daily "Scrum" or "stand-Up" meant for culture and ad-hoc discussion.

This notion of well planned sprints coming out of a changing & iterative project process has really taken precedent in the world's highest performing teams. It also happens to work.

The Scrum Master is designed to protect the process, relegating communication/collaboration during the sprint to a Daily Standup, or asynchronously via categorically organized/intermediary channels. Additionally, the items/topics that are communicated about during the sprint are generally kept specific to that sprint, set collaboratively at the planning session, prior.

Allowed the time and focus to work properly, the best teams and developers are highly dedicated to this model.

These days, a $50+ billion dollar software industry focuses on these kinds of operations. Product and Development teams got it good...

Well... What about the rest of us?

Even the salesperson, a communication based persona, has significant need of time for focused/flow-state work (e.g. Social selling and lead generation).

A seller on back-to-back meetings with no time to generate pipeline, research existing pipeline, or think strategically, is likely having an even harder time now - in our new hybrid world, where quantity is prioritized above quality. I am speaking to the old days, like 5 years ago... When a salesperson would take their prospect out to lunch and then spent a few hours making calls. 50% of a day like this is dedicated to preparing for and thinking about the meeting.

But CRM handles that, right?

Relative to the notepad and rolodex? Amazing.

CRMs, however, do not currently enable proper collaboration or communication, like DHQ does... even though DHQ is hardly doing the job its namesake would have you believe.

Hybrid and Remote business teams are not focused like development teams. Most have overwhelming calendars and rarely time or guidance before any of their 4-8 meetings/day. No focused communication or collaboration regarding their meetings... No solid protection from the whims of others' "pings" and prods.

Worst of all? Few analytics on how overwhelming amounts of meetings; many of which could have been an email, truly play into productivity and profitability.

Whining? Yes.

Solutions? Working, CHEF!