Focus
The single most destructive power when developing a product is lack of focus. The less focused the greater the challenge to share a vision and make daily work meaningful. A frequent cause is the wish for external stakeholders to have plans and multiple options for deliveries in the future. Few things are as demotivating as questions like “do you have a plan B?”
Focusing on a goal doesn’t stop experimenting with different ideas, innovation will come from questioning and trying new solutions, of which several will be bad. The core difference is if the team is doing this with freedom and a mindset of achieving more, do a little bit of everything to please others, or if they are forced to develop scenarios or alternatives in case a plan fails.
Questions about alternative plans or approaches to handle failure are based on a traditional binary mindset on completion of goals. This mindset is traditionally focused on an all or nothing perception of a product feature usually coupled with a precise point in time for a deliverable. In this case the best “plan B” is really to have a first iteration that partly fulfills the goals available, then complete failure is already avoided and effort can be focused on continued improvements.
As a leader thinking about different scenarios is a critical means of exploring what to do next and what goals to set. But once the goal is set it must be sole task of the team to think about how to reach this goal. If the goal is unrealistic or perilous the best input will come from the team itself.
In high risk situations allow for competing solutions and allow them to run as individual products so that each one can focus on succeeding with their approach. This will not be efficient, but effective and the total knowledge of the problem area will be greatly expanded.
Be brave, don’t make plans for endless what-if’s.
Focusing on a goal doesn’t stop experimenting with different ideas, innovation will come from questioning and trying new solutions, of which several will be bad. The core difference is if the team is doing this with freedom and a mindset of achieving more, do a little bit of everything to please others, or if they are forced to develop scenarios or alternatives in case a plan fails.
Questions about alternative plans or approaches to handle failure are based on a traditional binary mindset on completion of goals. This mindset is traditionally focused on an all or nothing perception of a product feature usually coupled with a precise point in time for a deliverable. In this case the best “plan B” is really to have a first iteration that partly fulfills the goals available, then complete failure is already avoided and effort can be focused on continued improvements.
As a leader thinking about different scenarios is a critical means of exploring what to do next and what goals to set. But once the goal is set it must be sole task of the team to think about how to reach this goal. If the goal is unrealistic or perilous the best input will come from the team itself.
In high risk situations allow for competing solutions and allow them to run as individual products so that each one can focus on succeeding with their approach. This will not be efficient, but effective and the total knowledge of the problem area will be greatly expanded.
Be brave, don’t make plans for endless what-if’s.
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