Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource!

Posted By on Oct 8, 2010


It’s been a tough yet fulfilling week.  Now that it’s over, I finally get to go home and give a huge hug to my 11 year old resource!

You might have guessed, but I’m talking about daughter who I love more than anything!  But since she’s simply a resource, I can easily replace her with any 11 year old kid and it’ll work just fine.  I get home, Vanessa has been replaced by…Sara and I give her a big hug, ask her about her day, play a game or two and prepare dinner.  Since I know exactly what she likes and what she’s allergic to, it’ll be shrimp dumplings with peanut butter sauce.  Mine you, I’ve never met Sara before, but a resource is a resource – It’s all the same.  If I can easily replace my material resources, such as a printer, and expect the same results, why would it be any different with human resources? What so special about humans?

A small favour

To at least all you fellow ScrumMasters and Agile coaches out there, I’m asking you a tiny little favour: Please stop referring to individuals as resources.  Just like my daughter, individuals working in a team are not interchangeable.  Team members go through the classic evolution stages, learn to work together and strive to become highly efficient.  If you pluck someone out and replace them like you would a memory chip, it will negatively affect the team.

Using the term “resources” does nothing to discourage this all too common practice in many organizations.  Slowly help your organization to drop the term “resource” when referring to individuals and maybe, just maybe, it’ll change the way project teams are perceived – Not just as bunch interchangeable robots hacking away on a keyboard, but a group of motivated individuals who are determined to find that perfect synergy.  In the corner over there, you have a true team (not to say a family) that is sharing a common vision with common goals and the unwavering belief that together they can deliver higher business value all the while lowering cost.

Now go home and hug your family.  Hopefully, no one was replaced 😉

5 Comments

  1. Éric,

    Count me in! I’ll never ever pronounce that word again 😉

  2. Nice post. Love your analogy with kids and our teams are ours and we have to still treat them individually and not club them into a group.

  3. Thank you Shilpa! I appreciate the feedback 🙂

  4. Here’s how Accenture view’s Resources – saw this Ad in the airports in Jan/2011.

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1551969240041&set=a.1488346489512.2065432.1259440349

    My guess is they would happily apply the adjective « Human » to the front of Resources.

    I’d rather not be a Noun – I would like to be a Verb.

    Buckminster Fuller wrote in his 1970 book I Seem To Be a Verb:

    « I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe. »

  5. Haha! Love it! In a bad kinda way.

    Thanks David!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. nicholas lemay - RT @projectcards: RT @TopsyRT: Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource! http://bit.ly/cjDcHJ
  2. Ian Chamberlain - RT @eric_laramee: RT @TopsyRT: Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource! http://bit.ly/cjDcHJ
  3. Ratsarazaka Mirana - Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource! http://bit.ly/cHElJA via @AddToAny
  4. Martin Proulx - Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource! http://bit.ly/cjDcHJ
  5. Mathieu Berube - RT @TopsyRT: Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource! http://bit.ly/cjDcHJ
  6. Samantha Laing - Why I dont like the term 'resource'... :) RT @analytical_mind: Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource! http://bit.ly/cjDcHJ
  7. Vernon Stinebaker - Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource! http://agilepartnership.com/2010/10/08/can’t-wait-to-go-home-and-hug-my-resource/
  8. João Cerdeira - Really really great !!! "Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource!" http://bit.ly/cHElJA #teambuilding
  9. Samuel Sirois - Voilà un article qui décrit bien mon malaise à l'utilisation du mot «ressources» dans «ressources humaines»: http://ur1.ca/28lm7 #gestion
  10. Maxime Séguin - Comique, je pensais faire un post sur exactement le même sujet! Tout à fait d'accord! RT @samuelsirois http://ur1.ca/28lm7 #gestion
  11. Eric Laramée - RT Can’t wait to go home and hug my resource! http://bit.ly/cjDcHJ

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