Getting the social architecture right

A predecessor project to mine had a development team that was just as able, and a steering board with more or less the same people on it. But they delivered much less. They spent a lot of time in rework and in arguments. The problem wasn't that their developers were argumentative. When their bosses aren't agreed on goals, developers can't agree on means.

I spent a lot of effort in the first two years on what could be called social architecture: establishing relationships and feedback mechanisms that were capable of delivering the product.

These were tense months. The UK army's officer training advises that before any engagement, write an appreciation of the situation from the point of view of the enemy. Three times I took a piece of A4 paper and wrote out "how the project looks to X". Then I met with X, and said "I'd like to be sure I understand how you look at the project. I'd like to say what I think you see. Please correct me when I get it wrong."

Then I would follow up by asking "How do you think the project looks to me?". From all three people, I got the response that they have no idea. I'm not reticent - the problem was not lack of information.

Robert Kegan describes "levels of consciousness". An infant has sensations, and by age three can name them; a child recognises objects, natural kinds, cause and effect, knows that other people have sensations, and can agree to and keep a deal; a teenager recognises natural laws, knows that other people may classify the world differently, and can be loyal to a relationship; an adult faces some more challenges, to consider rival theories or world views, and to set terms for relationships.

Developers often said in those first two years "I'm not interested in politics". That seems like a good expression of a desire to participate in relationships, not design them.

I've noticed that developers at an early stage of their career aren't ready to learn project management - it is the answer to questions they aren't asking yet. This seems to align with the suggestion that they are working at the third order of consciousness.

Has anyone else found Kegan and Fahey's work useful?