[wpietri]

Well, as long as there are observable regularities in your work, you have a process, just not a formal process. As long as there is a way for people to do things and get called out or admonished for it, you have norms, just not explicit rules.

What you're talking about is, at least in the Agile world, described with the shu-ha-ri model. People at the "shu" level really want rules so they know what to do. People at the "ha" level want rules for others. It's only at the "ri" level, that of mastery, that you can fluidly do what works without discussion.

Getting a team to self-organization is tricky. Sometimes rules help.

For example, I know one team that really loved their daily stand-up, but they had a problem with chronic lateness wasting a lot of time. So for a while they created a rule that lateness was punished by $1/minute into the beer jar. I once saw the CEO put $45 in. He was pretty pissed, but he was on time after that. Eventually, everybody got their shit together and they didn't need the rule anymore.

[Deestan]

> Getting a team to self-organization is tricky. Sometimes rules help.

Absolutely true. I actually feel bad for not emphasizing that properly. Teams of self-organizing people aren't as common as it should be.

My point is that we should not add rules unless we really need to, and that people are more likely to self-organize if given freedom.

E.g. If we turned out to have actual persistent problems communicating to the project manager, we would introduce rules.