Work hard, work fast, work together.

We've become obsessed with being busy, and lost sight of being productive.

A building company reduced staff hours from 45 hours per week to 38 hours per week, with no change in annual pay, and didn't have a blip on the bottom line.

A well functioning team can be many hundreds of times more productive than a poorly functioning team. Whereas the most efficient worker is only going to be ten times more productive than your least efficient worker, at best.

Think about the last design team on your building project, or the workgroup you sit with, or the subcontractor who installed your plumbing. How do they rate on the "effective team" scale?

We've lost sight of the benefits of intensive work and traded it in for long hours of solo drudgery.

How much more productive could we be if we spent less time working?

How would the construction industry change if we all learnt how to work hard, fast, and together?

We might build more, better, for less.

Which sounds like a piece of the solution to our housing crisis...

People lie at the cross-over between software development and community development

Scrum started in the software development industry. But the underlying principles are generic.

If you want to change how property works for your people, in your neighourhood:

1. Do something. Something you can point to. Something that stands alone. Anything. Even the smallest thing.

2. Identify what actions, projects, conversations, and decisions will bring the most value to the change you want to see happen. Do those things first.

3. We don't know how long it will take, untill we start and see how long it takes us. Then we'll get faster.

4. Shift things that slow you down. Spending time this week resolving something that makes you slower will pay dividends when get more done every week for the next ten years.

5. Always pause to reflect, review and share. Share not just what has happened, but how it happened. Tell stories, learn from them, make changes, get better and making things better.

6. Don't forget the most important things: People matter. Action counts. Work together. Learn, adapt and change continuously.

7. Commit. Find others who are committed, and commit to each other. Keep everyone else in the loop, but work with people who are committed.