This morning Andrew and I had a breakthrough design session.

Despite weeks (months?) of him telling me he felt outside the development process and unable to insert himself in the project, and weeks of me responding EXACTLY the same way (”then change the process!”), I feel we broke past the communication barrier and established a new level of collaboration.

We’re starting to come up with some pretty fundamental and game-shifting ideas.

I’m not sure we could have gotten here sooner, but I feel like we could have.  I think that if Andrew had asserted himself earlier by forcing these working sessions we could be two or three weeks ahead of where we are now.

But more importantly, if I had listened to what Andrew was trying to say, and tried answering differently, instead of saying the same thing louder, he may not have had to assert himself at all.

Teamwork is tough.  Remote teamwork is even more tough.  Remote teamwork with different skills and attitudes and priorities, and a really short timeline is really, really tough.  With all the tools and processes in the world, its still hard to pull off.

Especially when you involve creative people!

Photo by instatick