Stealthy Structure

When working in an informal team, imposing structure to keep things moving usually fails. It sounds like more work getting in the way of real work.

So don’t ask anyone to adopt anything. Just keep your own notes: goals, who’s doing what, the timeline. Treat it as how you stay organized. Over time, people will rely on your notes to know what to do. And you have stealthily introduced structure.

Try this

• Write down goals, scope, and timeline to the best of your knowledge
• Frame it as your own way of staying organized
• Check that your notes match what others think
• When they don’t, ask how to get them straight

Example A group of volunteers set out to build a playground with no one really in charge. One of them kept a running list of what had been decided and what was still open and called it her cheat sheet. When two people gave different answers about where the swings would go, she asked which was right, since she’d written down the other one. Within a couple of weeks, the others were checking with her before ordering anything.

For more details, check out my article on Substack