August 9, 2006	Volume 6, Issue 32
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Organizing a Barn Raising

by Rick Brenner

Once you find a task that you can tackle as a "barn raising," your work is just beginning. Planning and organizing the work is in many ways the hard part.

n problem-solving organizations, some tasks are repetitive, resulting from ongoing operations. Others are one-of-a-kind, and directly related to the organizational mission. And there are other tasks, one-of-a-kind or not, that relate to infrastructure and affect wide segments of the organizational population.

Tasks of this last category can be addressed using an organizational form similar to a "barn raising" — a custom from the early history of U.S. farm communities, where community efforts were applied to the benefit of single farm families.

In "Workplace Barn Raisings," Point Lookout for August 2, 2006, we surveyed the kinds of tasks that modern organizations can tackle as barn raisings. Here are some ways "barn raisers" can divide the work.

Plan, plan, plan

Whether you're raising a real barn or a figurative barn, you have to plan, and someone has to take the lead. Think of your barn raising as if it were a real project. It is.

Do your winter work

In traditional barn raisings, community members did "winter work" to prepare for the event, on their own farms, during the winter. They harvested timber, hewed beams, made pegs, and sharpened tools.

In a modern barn raising people do figurative "winter work" on their own well in advance. In moving a library, for example, they can label boxes or locate sources of dollies. The main ingredient
in organizing a modern
barn raising is no
surprise — organization

Prepare the site

Real barns need foundations and floors. And some of the work on the heavy timbers has to be done after they arrive on site. In real barn raisings, we do this kind of work on site in advance of the event.

Some of the work for your barn raising must be done in place, in the weeks leading up to the event. In our library example, labeling the bookshelves and installing dolly ramps might be examples of site prep work.

Know what to do the day before

In a real barn raising, food preparation is in the last-day category, but there are lots of other items, like preparing to look after children and farm animals during all the ruckus.

In a modern barn raising, the effort itself might have consequences internally, or with customers or ongoing use of the event site. You probably need to deal with these issues starting the day before the event.

Attend to people needs

In both traditional and figurative barn raisings, the celebration and sharing are part of the fun, and much of the benefit. Provide food and drink, scheduled breaks, comfortable places to rest, and a party afterwards.

Since you'll be asking people who are already working full time to lend a hand with your barn raising, you might have to coordinate delays in other efforts. Things can get complicated, but if you send me your success stories, I'll post them here in a kind of barn raising of a barn raising.  Top    Next Issue

Jim Batterson

When we lived in Montpelier, Vermont, they wanted to move the library. They asked everyone in town to check out some books from the old library and return them to the new library. Don't remember how well it worked.

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See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Problem Solving and Creativity for more related articles.

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When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

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The Race to the South Pole: The Power of Agile Development

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough. Lessons abound. Among the more important lessons are those that demonstrate the power of the agile approach to project management and product development. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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Human-Centered Risk Management

Most of us can assess technological risks, but risks related to human behavior tend to resist our best efforts. This session provides a framework for evaluating risks related to the behavior of individuals, teams, organizations and people generally. Human-centered risk differs from technological or market risk, because objective evaluation requires acknowledging personal and organizational limitations and failures. Since some of those limitations and failures might apply to the people assessing the risks, or to their superiors, there's a tendency to deny them or to explain them away. Our approach examines capability, organization, context, risk mitigation, and workplace politics. It has tools for guiding the assessment and management of human-centered risk, and we show how to extend these tools to suit your situation. You'll learn how to identify sources of risk in human behavior; recognize systemic and individual barriers to acknowledging risk; assess the effects of organizational turbulence; determine the risk associated with inappropriate internal risk transfer; estimate the effects of team dysfunction, toxic conflict and turnover; and measure the impact of workplace politics. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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Project Management in Fluid Environments

Most people now work in environments that can best be characterized as fluid, because they're subject to continual change. We never know what's coming next. In such environments, managing — teams, projects, groups, departments, or the enterprise — often entails moving from surprise to surprise while somehow staying almost on track. It's a nerve-wracking existence. This program provides numerous tools that help project managers who work in fluid environments. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Columbia, Missouri: May 17, Monthly Meeting, Mid Missouri Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Politics of Meetings for People Who Hate Politics

There's a lot more to running an effective meeting than having the right room, the right equipment, and the right people. With meetings, the whole really is more than the sum of its parts. How the parts interact with each other and with external elements is as important as the parts themselves. And those interactions are the essence of politics for meetings. This program explores techniques for leading meetings that are based on understanding political interactions, and using that knowledge effectively to meet organizational goals. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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