Office Space For Collaborative Teams
I have recently been involved in a couple of discussions around the office move that the DStv Labs team, and the rest of DStv Online will soon be undertaking. Essentially the move comes as a result of the consolidation on M-Net New Media, Supersport New Media and DStv New Media into a new division called DStv Online.
DStv Online has been setup with the intention of providing compelling entertainment and sport content to new and existing customers, in a manner that allows them to take advantage of the convergence that is taking place in the media space. The idea is to start taking advantage of the connected world by delivering content to the set-top box (STB) via satellite and/or IP connection, and link this STB-experience to a PC-experience - allowing customers to choose where and how they choose to consume their content.
Consolidating three teams into one new entity is always a challenging task. Each team brings their own personalities, culture and identity. The problem is made worse however, when all three teams are consolidated on paper, yet are physically separated. This all changes within the next few weeks. A new building (office pics will be posted soon), an entire floor, some funky new office furniture and oddly shaped spaces should finally bring the teams together so that a new culture and identity can finally take shape.
As mentioned in a previous post, the DStv Labs team has been setup to develop many of the new platforms that DStv Online is putting place. This team has been setup with agile development in mind, having adopted scrum as a methodology. As any high performance team will know, the working environment is critical in achieving this performance. You need to find the balance between isolating a team so that they can collaborate actively without disturbing other resources, and at the same time keeping their outputs and projects highly visible so that they remain accountable. White boards, display monitors, coffee stations, refrigerators, collaboration spaces - these all need to be taken into consideration when planning the ideal software development environment. I think that we have found the right balance in the space that we have chosen within this new building, and hopefully our team (which currently consists of 5 members, but will soon scale to 9 or 10) will be comfortable and happy in the new space.
For more reading on ideal office spaces, check out Joel Spolsky's post on the Bionic Office.
Agile, DStv, DStv Labs, STB, Scrum, convergence in Development, Teams ;)
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