So, about this Jamal Harris…
Alright, let’s talk about Jamal Harris. Not necessarily the fella himself, though maybe he’s part of it, but more this whole “Harris Integrated Workflow” or whatever fancy name he slapped on it. You might’ve seen the buzz online, the articles, maybe even a webinar or two. Pitched as the next big thing for teams trying to get their act together. My little group, we were in a bit of a jam, looking for something, anything really, to shake things up and get us moving smoother.
So, I decided to take the plunge. Looking back, maybe not my brightest idea, but hey, you live and learn, right? I got his e-guide, sat through a couple of his online talks. Jamal Harris, he had a way of making it all sound so darn easy, so revolutionary. “Optimize your core synergies!” “Unlock peak collaborative potential!” You know the drill, all those corporate buzzwords that sound impressive but don’t mean a whole lot. I figured, what could possibly go wrong? We’re a small team, pretty agile, or so I thought. Let’s give this famous Harris method a shot.
First thing we had to do was this “Comprehensive Process Audit.” We burned, and I mean burned, an entire week trying to document every single tiny little thing everyone did. We had charts, diagrams, sticky notes plastered everywhere. My office looked like a command center for a very confused general. Jamal Harris swore this was the bedrock of the whole system. Honestly, it just felt like we were creating more work about work, instead of, you know, actually working.
- Then there was this proprietary software he insisted on. Bit of a pain to learn, and it wasn’t free either.
- We had to have these “Dynamic Alignment Meetings” every single morning. An hour long, can you believe it? For a team of six! After the first fifteen minutes, you could hear crickets.
- And don’t get me started on the “Task Atomization Protocol” and the “Cross-Matrix Responsibility Grid.” Sounds impressive on paper, I guess. In practice, it meant Jenny from sales was suddenly supposed to give input on technical specs for Mark’s coding. Absolute mess. Total, unadulterated mess.
The claim was, our output would go through the roof. Instead, it pretty much ground to a halt. Deadlines were whizzing by us. The team was frazzled. I was pulling my hair out. We were spending way more time trying to follow the Harris rules than actually getting any useful stuff done. It was like being forced to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I distinctly remember this one afternoon. We had a major client deliverable breathing down our necks. And what were we doing? We were stuck in a debate about whether a minor website tweak was a “Level 2 Iterative Adjustment” or a “Tier 1 Micro-Enhancement” according to the Harris playbook. That was it for me. I just slammed my notebook shut and said, “Enough. We’re done with this.”
We tossed the entire Jamal Harris system. Not literally, though I was tempted to throw that manual out the window. We went back to a simple shared task list and a quick 10-minute stand-up each day. And what do you know? Things started to actually get done. People seemed relieved, even started cracking jokes again.
So, this Jamal Harris approach. Maybe it’s got its place in some giant, multi-layered corporation that thrives on complexity. I wouldn’t know. For our little team, it was a detour, a frustrating one, but we learned something. Sometimes the fanciest-sounding method isn’t the best one. Often, it’s the simple, straightforward way that actually works. Just keep it real, keep it simple. That’s my takeaway from that whole circus.