When the city of Gotham needs Batman, they will project the Bat-logo high into the sky for
everybody to see. Including Batman himself. Wherever he will be, he will get the information without a doubt (Unless it is clouded, he is locked in the Batcave, or gets problems with his eye-sight). The lesson from Batman is: to get information to people without locating them first, put it central enough so the changes that they get it, increases.

The agile community provides us with the concept of "information radiators":

"An information radiator is a large display of critical team information that is continuously updated and located in a spot where the team can see it constantly… Information radiators help amplify feedback, empower teams and focus a team on work results." from AgileAdvice

You can see some great examples in this article about Kanban boards.

Because of its "in your face" location it coordinates the movements of the team automatically. Team members can see instantly what they have to do next. This process is transparent, all the team members have the same information and therefor the same view on project reality. The social process of the team takes care that people who are lacking behind are assisted to keep up the pace, and if someone is taking a wrong turn the teams [TAG-Tec]collective intelligence[/TAG-Tec] can be used to correct this. So information radiators are all about feedback, empowerment and focus.

In essence this way of communication is really broadcasting; information from one member of the group is communicated to all other members. But the mechanism used is more of satellite broadcasting: you beam it up to one central place and the masses can consume it.

This is a repost of the original Project Sociology article/video.

In the first episode of this series I used a very simplified model of how stakeholder behavior is determined:

• Stakeholders have needs
• Based upon there needs and their perception of project reality they will choose a strategy that benefits them most.
• The execution of this strategy is their behavior.

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This is a repost of the original Project Sociology article/video. I removed the old one a while ag o oops.

In this first episode I will discuss how project people look at each other to measure them selves.

Projects are all about people. Its the human element that determines the success or failure of this temporary organizational endeavor. In my book Surprise! Now Youre a Software Project Manager I use this as the central point to explain to new project managers how to manage software projects.
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Some weeks ago I had to introduce new IT employees into the magical world of Project Management methods. These guys were completely new to the industry, so references to "real project life" were not going to save me (like it normally does :)).

I finally came up with the following start to kick of the training. It broke the ice and it worked very well. So if you are looking for an opener for your presentation, this might help you out.

Photography by j / f / photos.

The application that I used was "Google Earth" . BTW That looks great on big screens I used the zoom and slide function to talk about how methods limit your view, how you can choose to watch details, or how you can go for a global perspective. But using one limits you. So be aware of the level that is under attention.
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It seems only fair that I share with you the current research model I have about projects. I personally think that if you raise doubt and questions you also have to be part of the solution.

It may not come as a surprise that I view projects as a network of people that interact and have relationships. These networks are not stable and are not limited to the project itself. Networks emerge, people join and people leave, the networks collide and merge, or one network splits to become an almost independent unit. Of course almost, in the end our entire society is one big freaking network.

In the fashion of complex adaptive systems each network (=system) has global properties. In human networks this are shared properties that are projected to the outside world (the non-network members) and give the network itself direction. The global properties of the system are the result of the interactions of the members (=agents), but their value influences also the individual agents.

At this moment I recognize 4 types of relationships among the agents of interest:

Task
Interactions that are the result of intermediate steps to get to the goal of the network.

Information
The flow of information through the network. The interaction itself is communication

Coordination
I assume that the tasks cannot be done by one single person, and that the amount of resources (skills) are limited. Therefor coordination within the network is needed for the allocation of scarce resources, communication about intermediate results, coordination of goals, capabilities and forecasting of the (near) future.

Association
People have also relationships within the network (and within other networks) as means as a social expression.

Of course this view will alter. But it is the basic thinking structure I have at the moment, and I hope it will help you understand why I am posting on certain topics.