You know those rare times when you read an article, and inside you’re thinking “YES! YES! YES!”
This is one of those articles. “Speed as Habit” by Dave Girouard, CEO of Upstart, former president of Google Enterprise Apps. He starts with General Patton’s quote:
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.”
Some great points he makes that I love:
- Challenge the when. He says “I’m always shocked by how many plans and action items come out of meetings without being assigned due dates.” His suggestion: ask “Why can’t this be done sooner?”
- Read the hilarious story about an interaction with Tim Cook about a problem in China. Exactly.
- Recognize and remove dependencies: that is your job if you are the project lead. Clear the way for your team.
- “Pull out and stomp on the complicating pieces of the puzzle.” There is always one feature/requirement which is so complex that it requires 12 weeks of UAT. Also known as “the long pole in the tent.” I once was in that situation: I went to the senior folks and let them know we had a choice: Be on time without the feature, be late with it. We went without it…it was a 2 second decision that my team had been agonizing over for weeks.
- “Rally support for decisions”-“Help me understand why something would take so long?” My favorite question to ask is “If resources and money were unlimited, what would you do to get this done faster?” Sometimes people may think they can’t get more help.