David,
While this framework is interesting and may have limited application in some types of work, I do not believe that it corresponds to the world many of us live in on a daily basis.
The foundation of work is OUTPUT. Producing something of value to others. In some cases, it may be useful to work with others to obtain this value but in other cases it is not. While an over emphasis on process over people is never good, work is at its core about producing value. The HOW can and will vary based upon the work environment and relationships may play a part in this how but it is only a part.
I also find you Principles to be questionable at best. Just consider you statement on Ethical Responsibilities v. Enron, Qwest, etc. Or consider the trustworthly statement. Ask anyone who has been laid off after having the boss tell them that the company was in fine shape.
This framework might be interesting way to consider the role of relationships in the workplace but it is far too Utopian.
Tim Davidson | 02.18.08 - 11:36
As long as "biting" is OK, here we go...
Overall: with sincere appreciation for your attempts to re-cast 'work' or 'projects', I've begun to lose count of them all and what they were (somewhere back there is 'we're designers' and a fuzzy distant memory of not-project-management). My appreciation concerns giving a little jolt to my own thinking, but each new epiphany devalues the previous ones.
Concerning this idea of relational work: I've always carried around with me your ideas around the 'project community', this seems similarly rooted, but in your manifesto the dominant feeling is "instead of" where I think "and" might be a better place to start. This criticism may not recognize fully the intent of a manifesto.
You've described a lot of things that I already see in play today, but to put it in practice as the central model...well, I honestly think it might make for a decent exercise in a training class but can't see it working in even the smallest enterprise and not even a whiff of a chance in the types of companies that many of us are part of today.
Allowing myself to provoke a little, you seem to have described a bit of the school playground culture or "Lord of The Flies". And I keep thinking, "Is this who/how you'd get the Hoover Dam built?"
Joel L. Butler | 02.18.08 - 3:43 pm | #
