Oh, those long time periods of analysis.
Having discussions and meetings that do not result in a choice being made. Let alone any action being committed.
Recently, I had to just decide on an action to take.
Researching was not getting me any close to my choice.
Conversations were not settling the matter in my mind.
In the end, I committed to and completed an action.
Only time will tell if the choice was good, better, or best. Measuring the outcome is a critical way to determine the wisdom of the decision.
In product development, we’re faced with similar crossroads or tradeoffs.
We assess the value of what is being asked by clients and customers. Deliberations are lengthy and, sometimes, unproductive due to indecision.
Spend $25,000 to “potentially” earn $500,000? Wow, that does not seem like a good return on investment.
Back and forth it goes.
Most of the time, we forget that we can perform a series of “safe to fail” experiments. Low fidelity, working prototypes and be presented to clients, customers, and/or stakeholders.
Incremental and iterative delivery can overcome “analysis paralysis”.
What might you choose to do this week?
When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Today’s wisdom highlights the need for planning work.
Learning to understand what type of planning and how detailed a plan might need to be is an art.
We can all learn the planning processes, and we can learn to do them well.
Getting into the day-by-day, hour-by-hour work to be done is the place that moves from art to math.
We should model FORECASTS based on what we know about the work to be done.
We should NOT hold on to the forecasts once difficulty emerges that prevents work from being done.
Why?
All models are WRONG, but some are useful.
If the client and customer feedback loops are tight in the product development process, expect to be revising and updating the plan frequently based on new insights.
At Improving, we have people who “do work”.
Why?
Because product development is about experimentation, feedback, and adaptation.
For example, my colleague Randall had an idea for a gaming table. He could have just drawn an example of what that might look like.
Lengthy conversations would happen.
Deliberations and debates might occur.
But, what about a useful prototype that people could actually use?
Yesterday, Randall brought the first version of the table into the office for us to test and provide insight as to what works and what can be improved.
The next version is already being planned.
Are your teams and organization geared to getting a working product into the hands of clients and customers?
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