What gets measured, gets managed. This saying remains one of the key truths of management theory today. In my previous post, Matt Jones and Russell Davies talk about slow projects at the Do Lectures, but they also raise a key new idea which has become a reality in our world.
What gets scored, gets played.
This idea becomes empowering when applied to different projects going on. Some readers of this blog would be familiar with the work of Sam Sabey. This week, a slow project which Sam and Nathan have been working on came to fruition – Inspire9 was hooked up to Smart Energy Groups, which itself is another great example of an awesome project that’s been bubbling away for about 2 years now.
The fun is, we can now see the energy score of Nathan and the co-working crew at Inspire9, in real time. See the dash board if you haven’t already. You can see Nathan and Sam putting together their SEGmeter in the stop-motion video below
This is a great example of a slow project, developing right now, which allows us to score and play each other, rather than just measuring and managing ourselves. The score is what will become important, as more and more houses and businesses come on board. Imagine playing your neighbours in a giant energy saving game. That future exists in the project Sam is working on. Exciting times. When you’re next thinking about your project, think about how you can allow people to play with, rather than manage, their stuff.
The Squiggly Line 