Continuing with our communications theme and agile methods, we discuss the question, “what did you do yesterday?”  This simple question places a check in a few project management boxes starting with the mechanism for the control of the output – specifically the feedback portion of our project control system.  Learning what happened yesterday (coupled with yesterday’s question of what do you have planned for today) provide an assessment point of the project team’s accomplishments (establishes progress monitoring metric).  We now have a suitable position to plot trends via a comparison of what was supposed to be accomplished yesterday with what was actually accomplished.  As this control loop feedback is no older than 8 hours, we see we have the possibility of a responsive system indeed.

Progress sharing indirectly pushes team members as well.  When we see the progress the others are making on meeting the objective, we want to make sure we are doing our part (the positive impacts of peer pressure).  Many people are reluctant to bring the team’s performance down due to our actions (or inactions).

Additionally, this discussion out in the open with peers means when a team member is struggling to achieve an objective, we have the possibility of the differing perspectives of the team to “dislodge” the metaphorical log jam, fostering collaboration.