Working at Warp Speed

I remembered Barry Flicker’s ‘Working at Warp speed’. Sadly only +after+ the deadline of the last stressful project. I have to stick his four core ideas on the wall again.
- “We’re in this together.” Stress in the team leads to adversarial positions. Before I slip into the uncreative defensive mode, I have to remind myself of this. Some ‘Aikido in everyday life’ can help me with this. It helps me to keep centered and creative even under repetitive verbal attacks from stressed out colleagues.
- “Slow down before you turn.” I have to make sure to be inclusive when taking the project trough a major curb into a different direction. Turning to fast leads to a lot of confusion. Also in review meetings I need to stay better focused, take time to take a step back. Otherwise things get sloppy. Would it help to change the music from hard rock to relaxing, to influence my state of mind? It is what Norman suggests in ‘Emotional Design’…
- “Am -I- the best one to do this?” I got pretty good at delegating the right stuff, but I have to coach the others.
- “Take time to plan.” I really appreciate those short daily kick-off meetings! Much better than diving right in. But again we didn’t plan in user and consumer feedback. This can be so powerful, but always gets crushed in the rush of tight deadlines.

Barry Flicker didn’t give any ideas on how to break away from old solutions and doing something really sexy when working at warp speed. I have to find a way get this in the process…