Human Spaces
Human Space is co-created; by leaders and their teams in collaboration. The main differences to PM are:
1. The cascade of goal setting is replaced by a team and/or one-to-one dialogue about the purpose of the organisation and the purpose of the team and individual roles within the organisation. Purpose is fundamentally different to goals/KPIs; it connects us emotionally. the objective is to get both clarity and meaningfulness. When you have clear and meaningful purpose, you can also ask "why is that important to you?" - connecting to the individual's sense of purpose.
2. Measurement is achieved by the second dialogue - the definition of both success and failure - again at team and individual levels. This raises questions of standards - what is the range of acceptable performance? What are the minimum standards we hold everyone accountable for. The team dialogue includes "what are we collectively accountable for?" and what are the consequences of success and failure. This highlights where collaboration is required and where resources need to be shared. It also generates performance pressure. Once we reach this stage, every team member should be able to draw a "red thread" from their purpose to the organisation's.
3. Team members are now in a position to collaborate around what the deliverables are; both the day-to-day business processes and the project/ development work. These can be mapped to the purpose and the purpose drives the decisions on priorities and resources. Alignment is maintained as the every new suggestion for additional projects is tested with "How does that serve our purpose?" and "Does it serve us better that what we are already doing?"
All of this can be represented visually, regularly reviewed and team discussions/ meetings are focussed on removing roadblocks, celebrating success and learning reflection.
The beauty of this method is that you do not need change-power. If your mindset is that people are talented and have more to offer than the traditional PM method elicits AND that your role is to create the conditions for higher performance, not to tell people what to do - you can take this apprpach without asking for permission.
First step? Bring the team together and have the first 2 dialogue's - "what is the purpose of this organisation? and what is the purpose of this team?". Once you have agreed these, ask the individuals to work on the purpose of their roles and get peer challenge and feedback. All purpose statements have to be 15 words or less!