There is No Fighting in The War Room

Over the past few months we have been working on a data warehouse project that will basically be a relaunching of the data warehouse on a new platform. As with any project, the end is a very stressful time. The team has no option but to finish and it often leads to long hours and late nights. As part of this project, we determined that it was best to pull the team into a war room. 


What is a war room? And why are we talking about it on a data warehouse project?


Well, our war room doesn't have any of the cool things that you would imagine. We don't have a map with model tanks and soldiers and some kind of instrument to slide them around with. Also missing are faceless people behind computer screens with a beeping radar screen. Sadly, we have no giant map on the wall with beeping lights.  In fact we don't have a single beeping graphic!  

No, our war room is just a conference room that has a bunch of lap tops, one desk phone and is surrounded by dry erase boards. However, that does not mean we are not doing some really exciting things.

The initial reaction to telling 10 people that they are going to be sitting in a room for 10 hours and forced to stare at either each other or their computers was unsurprisingly not good. People did not want to give up their desks and the quietness and privacy that comes along with that. The first day people had a really hard time with being in the room and everyone had their headphones blasting to avoid any noise or distractions. It was like we just faced everyones desks together. In fact, people were still chatting on IM instead of talking even though they were sitting no more than 4 feet from each other . 

By day 2, I started noticing that people were talking more. Instead of emailing questions, questions came up as they popped in development. Developers started collaborating and working with each other to solve problems. As the week went on, the headphones were mostly gone as people learned how to concentrate while there is noise. Questions were still being asked and gone was the waiting and slowness of back and forth through email. The team completed more work in a shorter time then they had during the whole project. 


It's been a week and it has not all been perfect. People are on edge from being locked in a room all day with others. One of the things I try to do is ask if something only impacts two people that they go to the smaller conference room next door. One of the problems is that there a lot of different personalities and naturally there will be friction. But, for the most part, what I've seen is a team that is more effective and productive. 


If we are going to continue in the future with this model, I think it will be important to come up with rules for the war room. A few suggestions:

• Before asking a question, think - Don't just blurt out questions as soon as they pop in your head, try and solve it yourself first for a minute and then ask away


• If a conversation only involves you and one other person, kindly use a different area to have that conversation


• More to come...

We are still in the war room and it's not perfect in here but so far things are working and we are getting our project done. I hope it continues and that we can continue to experiment with things like this in the future. 


Updates to follow once project is complete.