Of course, when Simon and Jesper were talking about friction in a recent Call for Insights, my mind went straight to community.
Partly this is because I've long been saying that community is optimised when it runs like a flywheel. I then adapted it to say that, actually, community is a flywheel. After I said that, it felt like it made more sense to say that community is a system. It's like you can't touch community, because it is everywhere, it's part of the system. And guess what, you can't touch quality either. Because it's part of the system.
But then, I talk about how community is care. And quality is care too. You can't have either when there is no care.
So, lack of care must lead to friction. People stop caring. Innovation stops. People show up to do the job, and no more. Processes break down. Communication breaks down.
To reduce friction, increase the culture of care, I suppose!
And this makes sense to me, especially in team MoT, where we are the moment, we've doubled down on caring. And the more we've done that, the more the flywheel has spun. The more things flow. The better we connect. The more we understand and communicate. The more we remove things that we don't believe aligns.
Community and quality start to break down when friction is in place. It can breakdown with a million little frictions. Normally, it isn't one big thing that kills a community, it's more like death by a thousand cuts, or perhaps it's more like a thousand inconsiderations. The same with quality, it's a thousand little things that impact friction and quality.
References, the conversation with Simon and Jesper that inspired this thought:
- https://www.ministryoftesting.com/insights/friction-has-a-complex-relationship-with-quality
The photo is for fun, but also, a while back I discovered there are flywheels in the anatomy of waves. Yes, it sounds obvious when I say it out loud, but it brought me much joy. Also, I love waves, for those that don't know. 🌊
