How I learned Coordination the Hard Way

A lesson in staying coordinated with people

I was sitting at my desk, deep in a Teams' meeting with Bibs, the project lead of the structural team. We were discussing a new project, and things seemed to be going well. Instead of using typical slides, we were doing our "signature play", showing off our previous structural work in real-time. It was working , our "client", Bibs, seemed impressed with our work. After an hour of smooth conversation and some rough estimates of cost, we closed the "sale". A couple hours later, Bibs sent over the information for us to get started. We've been trying to work with Bib's team in the company for little over a year now.

Monday rolls around and I open up Revit and Rhino, ready to start modelling. Something was off, I looked at everything Bibs sent us and I didn't have enough to start modelling. Confused, I got my manager, Kace involved and together, we scoured through all the information Bibs sent us, but we were still coming up short. We needed another meeting but we knew he was busy.

So, we decided to forge ahead with what we had. We made our own assumptions and decided that it was better to show Bibs we've done some work rather than show up empty handed.

About two weeks later, when we finally got Bibs on a call, we peppered him with questions about the project. I was asking more questions while I was writing down the answers to the previous ones. We were feeling quite satisfied with ourselves too, we were showing Bibs that we really knew our stuff and that we knew exactly what to look for in the project.

But, Bibs' frown got worse with every question we asked. When we were finally done, he sighed and asked:

"Why do you need all of this information anyway? We never agreed on your team to do the modelling"

Confused, I replied "but I thought that is exactly what we agreed on ?". He looked down, with a long heavy exhale, looked into the camera and said "We don't need a 3D model, we need a way to visualize the data on the model, I thought you understood that. We need this done by next week, you're telling me you've been working on the wrong thing this whole time ?"

For the next five minutes, the only sound was the sound of a nearby printer going off. The silence finally broke with Bibs telling us to just continue with the task. He was smiling at us when he ended the call but I could tell he was frustrated and disappointed in our team.

Instead of putting the effort to coordinate with him at the start, we spent two weeks moving in the wrong direction. Now, we would have to spend another two weeks to make it up. Instead of taking only two weeks, the entire project now took four weeks.

This is the coordination tax, and my team just paid it back with "interest".

What is Coordination Tax?

The coordination tax is the price we pay when we skip the crucial work of alignment at the beginning of a project. Like financial debt, it follows a simple principle: pay a small price upfront or a much larger one later. It's called a tax because if you don't pay it at the start, you start to build "interest" on it, making it more expensive.

In our case with Bibs, we had verbally agreed to the project and even started work. But we hadn't done the crucial task of truly understanding what he needed. Our rush to impress him cost us dearly in misdirected effort.

The coordination tax can seem like a waste of time but it's vital to pay it as early as possible. The embarrassment of that call will likely haunt me for the rest of my life but it's a lesson I am grateful to have learnt.

3 Ways to Minimize the Coordination Tax

While you can't eliminate coordination tax entirely, you can take steps to minimize it, making it easier to pay upfront. Here are some strategies that I have found effective:

Develop Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs)

I know I know, SOP is a business word and your company likely has a few hundred of them somewhere that you "needed" to read during induction. But this is different.

The SOP I am taking about is formalizing a process that you already do. The idea is to have your own systematic approach to ensure you are always aligned with your client and team's goals on a project.

It's about taking what you and your team already do and turn it into a document for anyone to refer at anytime. It could be as simple as a checklist to remind people what to do at the different phases of a project. Keeping it specific to your team and your projects will help remind you when you need to be coordinated with other people.

If you feel that your team isn't onboard with this, it's still useful to write one for yourself. I have found 7 Steps to Write Standard Operating Procedures that ACTUALLY Work - YouTube to be quite helpful in learning how to create my own SOPs.

Set Regular but Efficient Meetings

We all hate meetings but regular short and efficient meetings are crucial for keeping everyone on the same page.

While there isn't an ultimate way to hold meetings, I have found these strategies to be helpful and it's nothing you haven't heard of before:

• Try to have clear meeting agendas that are shared in advance

• If a decision needs to be made, it should be highlighted in the meeting agenda

• Action items should be noted down during the meeting and shared with everyone

I've found this YouTube video helpful on how to run effective meetings

Encourage Asynchronous Communication

Having a single place where people can comment and upload resources is crucial for staying coordinated. This means people can add their thoughts and updates on their own time instead of getting disrupted with a meeting. When everyone can see what's happening at their own pace, those necessary meetings become more productive because everyone comes in already informed.

Using productivity tools like Notion or ClickUp, you can create spaces where everyone can see their own tasks and notes without having to hold meetings. Just keep in mind that shifting to this way of working takes time – some teams are more comfortable with traditional meetings and emails. The key is to start small and let people experience the benefits of fewer interruptions to their work.

Final Thoughts.

Even with these strategies in place, it's likely that you're still going to have projects where coordination is difficult. How much coordination tax you pay is always dependent on everyone's ability to communicate.

In my case, I didn't do the work to understand the client's needs, but it could have also been that the client didn't know what he wanted too. It was a huge cost to the team because it wasn't just the two weeks of wasted work or the extra two weeks on top of that. It was the trust and confidence that evaporated in that silent call with Bibs. It's always cheaper and more efficient to stay coordinated from the beginning.