Changing point of view -- and letting go

I've now been in the US for a bit more than a week, assisting my friend and colleague Mark Ferguson with his direction of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. I get my daily inspiration as an XP coach from the conviction that theatre teams and software teams share the same sorts of problems, hence there is much to be learn from how the other side addresses specific questions. Needless to say, I feel very lucky to have been able to escape a whole month from IT and answer Mark's invitation to work with him. I always find it great and invigorating to work on producing a play, much like working on software development -- although every effort being at the same time shorter, denser and more exhausting.

This specific production means a lot to me, since it is the first time I work in a theatre company as an assistant director. Having mostly been designer or stage manager before, I find it very interesting to apprehend the production of a play from a directorial point of view. Of course, my specific interest in team management and self-organization brings all kinds of new perspectives to the experience itself.

So, what have I learnt so far? The biggest lesson was for me to realize how hard a time I have to let things go, and accept that the perfection of a specific moment may be less important than clarifying the general arc of a scene -- even if it means that a romatic kiss, a nice pun or a tense moment will just appear sloppy for a while, until we get to work on them again. I find parallels here with what it means to program a software feature and accept that specific error handlings, or nice additions to that feature will have to wait for other (prioritary) parts of the software to be completed first. It also reminds me how, in the game of go, you want to clarify your influence on the whole board before completing any specific position in, say, one of the corners.

This adds to my former understanding of what the value of courage is. It takes courage to leave part of our work unfinished in favor of more important matters, and to face the risk of feeling ashamed about it in the event someone would see it as it stands now.