Propinquity: Is the Lack of Propinquity Killing Your Project?
By: John Sextro
Tags: Scrum, Agile

The lack of propinquity could be killing your project and you don’t even know it. Propinquity is a “silent” killer. In order to prevent the death of your project you must first understand propinquity.

Miriam-Webster defines propinquity as “nearness in place or time”. In social psychology the theory of “The Propinquity Effect” asserts that there “is a tendency for people to form friendships or romantic relationships with those whom they encounter often”. Similarly, in 1966 anthropologist Edward T. Hall introduced the concept of “Proxemics” to describe set measurable distances between people as they interact. E.T. Hall hypothesized that, “The influence of two people on each other is inversely proportional not only to the square of their distance but possibly even the cube of the distance between them.”

As it relates to this discussion, I define propinquity as the nearness of the critical members of a project team. I assert to you that project success rates increase as the propinquity (or nearness) of the critical members increases. For instance, a project whose team members work in different buildings in an office park or campus will fail more often than a team whose members work in the same building. Even further a project whose team members all work within 200 sq. feet of each other will succeed more often than a team whose members work scattered throughout a 10,000 sq. foot work area.

In an era of seemingly constant communication among workers via email, instant messenger, text messaging and Twitter you might find it hard to imagine that propinquity plays such a vital role in the success of projects. Many people refuse to accept the hard truth, that these forms of communication poorly substitute for the face-to-face, human-to-human interaction that organically happens when high levels of propinquity exist. Have you ever had a cube neighbor that worked in a different group, but with whom you had a friendship, that moved to another area down the hall, another floor or maybe even another building? How often do you talk to this person today? You were once close, why don’t you talk with this person anymore? The reason, lack of propinquity. It is not that you are too lazy to to pop open a chat window, write an email, walk down the hall, traverse the steps or wait for the elevator…ok maybe it is laziness. Whatever it is, this inhibiting factor is in all of us. By the way, how much do you talk to the new person that moved into your friend’s cubicle (or work area)? Scary isn’t it?

It is no wonder then that the agile software development methodologies prescribe co-location for all critical team members as a core principle. The creators of the agile methodologies knew, either consciously or subconsciously, of the critical link between propinquity and success in software development. Throughout my 7+ years of practicing Scrum and Extreme Programming I insisted and made certain that my team sat in a contiguous block of cubicles or, preferably, in a team/project room. As a testament to propinquity and agile methodologies stands a track record of success and high customer satisfaction for each of these projects during this 7+ year period. By way of hindsight I can clearly see all of the positive effects that propinquity bestowed onto these projects. In contrast, I can also imagine all of the problems and issues that we might have faced in the absence of propinquity.

If you feel that your project suffers from problems with communication, team spirit, shared vision, or productivity then move the team into a team/project room. Even if the team already sits in close proximity to each other, move them into the room. It will amaze you how much of a difference you will see just by removing a barrier as small as a cubicle wall.