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  37. Broskoski, Charles 6
  38. brutalism 7
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  60. Cleary, J.C. 8
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  76. craft 66
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  82. Cross, Anita Clayburn 10
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  92. Debord, Guy 6
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  176. intuition 8
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  178. Irwin, Robert 65
  179. Isaacson, Walter 28
  180. Ishikawa, Sara 33
  181. iteration 13
  182. Ive, Jonathan 6
  183. Jackson, Steven J. 14
  184. Jacobs, Jane 54
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  188. Kahn, Louis 4
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  235. Miller, J. Abbott 10
  236. Mills, C. Wright 9
  237. minimalism 10
  238. Miyazaki, Hayao 30
  239. Mod, Craig 15
  240. modularity 6
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Teamwork & Cooperation

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  • Face-to-face conversations

    The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

    Manifesto for Agile Software Development
    • teamwork
  • On Teamwork

    What I’ve always felt that a team of people doing something they really believe in is like, is like when I was a young kid, there was a widowed man that lived up the street. He was in his 80’s, and a little scary looking, and I got to know him a little bit — I think he paid me to cut his lawn or something — and one day he told me, “come into my garage, I want to show you something.”

    And he pulled out this dusty old rock tumbler. It was a motor and a coffee can and a band between them. And he said “come out here with me,” so we went out to the back and we got some rocks, just some regular old ugly rocks and we put them in the can with a little bit of liquid and a little bit of grit powder, and he turned the motor on and said “come back tomorrow,” as the tumbler was turning and making a racket.

    So I came back the next day and what we took out were these amazingly beautiful and polished rocks. The same common stones that had gone in — through rubbing against each other, creating a little bit of friction, creating a little bit of noise — had come out as these beautiful polished rocks.

    And that’s always been my metaphor for a team working really hard on something they’re passionate about. It’s that through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together, they polish each other, and they polish their ideas. And what comes out are these really beautiful stones.

    Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview
    • teamwork
    • passion
    • argument
  • A small team of committed coworkers

    The innovative designer also likes, perhaps needs, to work with a small team of committed co-workers who share the same passions and dedication.

    Nigel Cross & Anita Clayburn Cross, Winning by Design: The Methods of Gordon Murray
    1. ​​On Talent​​
    • teamwork
  • We come as a team

    There is a legend at Cooper of one team who found pairing with each other so powerful and fruitful that when they left that company, they sought out opportunities and even interviewed at other organizations as a pair.

    Gretchen Anderson & Christopher Noessel, Pair Design: Better Together
    • teamwork

    See also: Charlie and Mac join the corporate work force to get health insurance.

  • Hand and brain chess

    In hand and brain chess, each team has two players: a “brain” and a “hand.” At the beginning of each turn, the “brain” tells the “hand” which piece to move, and the “hand” then has to move that piece, but can move it wherever they think it should go. No other communication is allowed.

    Matthew Ström, The hand and the brain
    matthewstrom.com
    • games
    • teamwork
  • Serendipity

    This was not meant to be like Bell Labs; there were no expectations that the clerical workers would run into their managers in a “serendipitous encounter” and produce a new innovation. The ideas was rather to create a workplace in which status barriers seemed to dissolve, in which participation and friendliness all around made the work environment look less like the white-collar factory it was.

    Nikil Saval, Cubed
    1. ​​The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn​​
    • teamwork
    • communication
  • The cubicle

    The cubicle had the effect of putting people close enough to each other to create serious social annoyances, but dividing them so that they didn’t actually feel that they were working together. It had all the hazards of privacy and sociability but the benefits of neither. It got so bad that nobody wanted them taken away; even those three walls offered some kind of psychological home, a place one could call one’s own. All these factors could deepen the frenzied solitude of an office worker.

    Nikil Saval, Cubed
    • work
    • teamwork
    • solitude
    • privacy
  • Viability, usablity, feasibility

    In an empowered product team, the product manager is explicitly responsible for ensuring value and viability; the designer is responsible for ensuring usability; and the tech lead is responsible for ensuring feasibility. The team does this by truly collaborating in an intense, give and take, in order to discover a solution that work for all of us.

    However, in a feature team, you still (hopefully) have a designer to ensure usability, and you have engineers to ensure feasibility, but, and this is critical to understand: the value and business viability are the responsibility of the stakeholder or executive that requested the feature on the roadmap.

    Marty Cagan, Product vs. Feature Teams
    svpg.com
    1. ​​What went wrong?​​
    • teamwork
  • Intuition and systems

    Systematic design excluding intuition yields pedestrian follow-ons and knock-offs; intuitive design without system yields flawed fancies. How to weld intuition and systematic approach? How to grow as a designer? How to function in a design team?

    Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The Design of Design
    • design
    • teamwork
  • Political chains of influence

    In Chicago, formal chains of influence and authority are entirely overshadowed by the ad hoc lines of control which arise naturally as each new city problem presents itself. These ad hoc lines depend on who is interested in the matter, who has what at stake, who has what favors to trade to whom.

    This structure, which is informal, working within the framework of the first, is what really controls public action. It varies from week to week, even from hour to hour, as one problem replaces another. Nobody’s sphere of influence is entirely under the control of any one superior; each person is under different influences as the problems change. Although the organization chart in the Mayor’s office is a tree, the actual control and exercise of authority is semilattice-like.

    Christopher Alexander, A City Is Not a Tree
    • politics
    • teamwork
    • organization
  • Instruments of cooperation

    When work isn't shared, the instruments of cooperation – listening, taking note, adjusting – atrophy like muscles that are no longer in use.

    Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology
    • work
    • teamwork
  • Rapport

    "Bob's rapport with the workers is extraordinary. Reminds me of something Noguchi once pointed out about Bernini during the days he was building St. Peter's in Rome: how what made him so special, aside from his own obvious gifts, was his ability to extend himself through the work of others, to get them on his side and working in his direction."

    Lawrence Wechler & Robert Irwin, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees
    • leadership
    • teamwork
  • The power of One

    An Article by Kathy Sierra
    headrush.typepad.com

    It's not teams that are the problem, it's the rabid insistence on teamwork. Group think. Committee decisions.

    Most truly remarkable ideas did not come from teamwork. Most truly brave decisions were not made through teamwork. The team's role should be to act as a supportive environment for a collection of individuals. People with their own unique voice, ideas, thoughts, perspectives. A team should be there to encourage one another to pursue the wild ass ideas, not get in lock step to keep everything cheery and pleasant.

    • ideas
    • teamwork
    • collaboration
  • Individuals matter

    An Article by Dan Luu
    danluu.com

    One of the most common mistakes I see people make when looking at data is incorrectly using an overly simplified model. A specific variant of this that has derailed the majority of work roadmaps I've looked at is treating people as interchangeable, as if it doesn't matter who is doing what, as if individuals don't matter.

    Individuals matter.

    1. ​​On Talent​​
    • teamwork
    • planning
    • work
  • Design Leadership Truisms

    An Article by Peter Merholz
    www.petermerholz.com
    PEOPLE ARE NOT THEIR JOB TITLES.
    TEAM MEMBERS ARE NOT “RESOURCES”.
    PEOPLE WORK BEST WHEN THEY CAN BE THEIR FULL SELVES.
    YOU CANNOT CALCULATE AN ROI FOR DESIGN.
    FRAMING THE PROBLEM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOLVING THE PROBLEM.
    (DESIGN) LEADERSHIP IS MORE TALKING THAN DOING.
    YOU’LL DO A BETTER JOB IF YOU LIGHTEN UP
    IF YOU HAVEN’T PISSED SOMEONE OFF, YOU’RE NOT DOING YOUR JOB RIGHT.
    NO ONE OUTSIDE YOUR TEAM UNDERSTANDS WHAT IT TAKES TO DO GOOD WORK.
    THE OUTCOMES ARE BETTER WHEN EVERYONE IS A DESIGNER.
    AGILE TRANSFORMATIONS ARE HOSTILE TO GOOD DESIGN.
    WHAT A DESIGN TEAM NEEDS MOST IS A CLEAR SENSE OF PURPOSE.
    YOU ARE ON THE FRONT LINE OF A GLOBAL WAR FOR TALENT.
    EVERYONE APPLYING FOR A ROLE HAS AN INFLATED TITLE.
    INTERVIEWS ARE A POOR WAY OF ASSESSING CANDIDATES.
    DESIGN EXERCISES ARE A BAD INTERVIEWING PRACTICE.
    YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH DESIGNERS.
    YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME.
    THE SKILLS THAT GOT YOU HERE ARE NOT THE SKILLS THAT WILL CARRY YOU FORWARD.
    
    1. ​​Truisms​​
    • design
    • leadership
    • teamwork

    Truncated for brevity. The selection here represents those that align with my own experience.

  • The Small Group

    An Article by James Mulholland
    jmulholland.com

    Lying somewhere between a club and a loosely defined set of friends, the SMALL GROUP is a repeated theme in the lives of the successful. Benjamin Franklin had the Junto Club, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis had The Inklings, Jobs and Wozniak had Homebrew.

    Around a dozen members is the sweet spot of social motivation: small enough to know everyone, yet large enough that the group won’t collapse if one or two members’ enthusiasm wanes; small enough that you are not daunted by competing with the whole world, yet large enough that you still need to be on your toes to keep up.

    1. ​​Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees​​
    2. ​​Mutual appreciation​​
    3. ​​Scenius​​
    4. ​​Tossing an idea around​​
    • teamwork
    • creativity
    • innovation
    • collaboration

    I also think of artist collectives like Robert Irwin's early work at the Ferus Gallery. But it also seems that you can't just get any 12 people together and have it work as a truly creative SMALL GROUP – most startups I feel would not necessarily fit this description. Probably the members need to be doing the same kind of work, not just working on the same thing.

  • Mutual appreciation

    A Fragment by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    To use slightly different terms, mutual appreciation is a healthy jealousy without envy – a drive to achieve the same but without wanting to take it from the other.

    1. ​​The Small Group​​
    2. ​​Scenius​​
    • collaboration
    • teamwork

See also:
  1. work
  2. collaboration
  3. design
  4. leadership
  5. communication
  6. politics
  7. organization
  8. solitude
  9. privacy
  10. creativity
  11. innovation
  12. games
  13. passion
  14. argument
  15. planning
  16. ideas
  1. Nikil Saval
  2. Frederick P. Brooks
  3. Jr.
  4. Christopher Alexander
  5. Ursula M. Franklin
  6. Lawrence Wechler
  7. Robert Irwin
  8. Marty Cagan
  9. James Mulholland
  10. Matt Webb
  11. Matthew Ström
  12. Peter Merholz
  13. Gretchen Anderson
  14. Christopher Noessel
  15. Nigel Cross
  16. Anita Clayburn Cross
  17. Steve Jobs
  18. Dan Luu
  19. Kathy Sierra