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Another role, maybe?

The "GO TO" guy. This is a guy who has gained the reputation of being the one to solve any problem. It's a little like the hero, but more co-ordinated and more infrastructure relation. You'll rarely see the guy running around putting out fires; he won't repair a server from 3pm Friday finishing at 3am Sunday morning. Instead this is the guy that when there's large scale deep knowledge issues then management will go to this guy and know he'll get to the bottom of it, work out the underlying problems and fix them. It could be an infrastructure issue (eg SMTP server overloaded; tune sendmail) or it could be process related (how to ensure new users have a common configuration; create a new automation system) or almost anything. Like the hero, he could burn out if over used, but when he does the job he gets the satisfaction of knowing his solution will become part of the standard procedures going forwards.

A.3.2 pg 705

There is also the concept of a "stuffed bear"; as you say, just by talking out your problem to another can help organise thoughts and help solve the problem. I've heard of one company where they had a physical stuffed bear for people to talk out their problems with. It worked!

A.3.6 pg 708

For some reason Americans seem not to want to just go out for beer with co-workers after work. In the UK it was almost a regular thing; people would spontaneously decide "let's go down the pub!" and a number would. Typically a core group of 3 or 4, and with a changing addition of other team members. Chatting over beer helped the team become closer and allowed people to moan and gripe about things in a non-confrontational manner; what was said down the pub stayed down the pub. Beer good!

At another job we sometimes would have long lunch breaks; go down the pub at 12:30 and... leave at closing time Well, once that happened; I had to pop back at 4:45 to pick up my bag! Normally it would be an hour or two. Again, helped with team bonding!

-- StephenHarris - 26 Aug 2006