Most people overestimate what tasks they can do in one week. Those same people often underestimate what value they can achieve in a decade.

Many of my clients often feel like the figure in the image on the left (of the double image to the right). They are struggling through a list of tasks that they can never accomplish in that week.

Many of those tasks were given to them. Many of those tasks they self-created. And many of them likely have some significant importance for the next week or two. Some are even important for the long term.

How does one turn their inner music of feeling buried in pebbles to feeling the confidence and pride of one’s longer-term achievements?

First, I encourage people to follow my three-step reality management process.

1. See reality.  If you are a person focused on achieving big things, you will always find your plate overflowing.  People often tell me their weeks are unpredictable. Every week, they have a constant barrage of interrupts. The key is ‘every week.’ This means that there is a predictability to that unpredictability.  Track your week. See the patterns.
2. Accept reality.  It isn’t enough to see what your own data is telling you. I have had many clients do data analysis to see that they would have to work 180 hours a week to recover a project.  Yet, they do not accept the data.  The reason for the denial is fear of the next step.
3. Deal with reality.  This is usually the hardest step. You have to tell people that you are behind.  You may have to say no to certain tasks.  You may have to skip those meetings you have been going to that people really want you to attend. 

People often find this process hard until they implement the key point of this short newsletter.   Work on answering this question:  what is the long-term value and impact of all those hours of your work?

Here are some ideas of how to get to your own answer.

• Who benefits? Who are the primary people that will benefit from your work?  How will they benefit?  What is the value and impact for them?
• Think big about the possible benefits.  Over the long term, think beyond one year, how much more could your work have a positive impact?
• Engage those around you.  Bringing in others on a longer-term positive vision is motivating for you and them. 
• Anchor your efforts today on the long term impact you will make.  The reality management steps get much easier when one focuses on the distant horizon. You will need to make daily adjustments, but you must keep pointed towards the big value you can provide.

There are not one-time steps.  I encourage you to refresh periodically. If you need help getting your vision clear, reach out to others. I love helping with this.

The better you get at focusing on the value you provide, the more fun every week becomes.

Yours in the calm pursuit of excellence,

Alan Willett

“I have the need…the need for speed!”— Quote From the movie Top Gun

Last week’s newsletter about the need for “DESIGN” generated lots of questions, most of them nicely phrased.

The big summary of the questions was simply this. “We are supposed to be doing Agile. Even if we agree with you, ‘design’ is not acceptable in the Agile world.”

I encourage everyone that has this question to read the original agile manifesto.

You will not see anywhere that it says don’t design. Or that design is not important. In the “principles behind the Agile Manifesto,” design is called out twice as a key principle.

Yet, many people think that design and Agile don’t mix well.

I also understand why some people have negative feelings about design. Too many organizations treat the design process as an opportunity to produce large, cumbersome, useless documents. They add no value and slow you down.

I have also seen the design phase result in “analysis paralysis.”

Neither of those is a problem with the design process. The problem lies in some people’s understanding of a good design process.

When I talk about design, I am talking about ensuring that multiple ideas are debated to approach a problem. When I talk about design thinking, I am talking about the urgency to make sure our solutions are created on a solid foundation. When I am talking about design, I am talking about prototypes’ need to explore alternative approaches to the problem both from a technical perspective and from a user’s workflow perspective.

When I talk about design, I am talking about resilient eloquent solutions that enable new features to be easily added.

I have worked with multiple clients who have adopted various Agile methodologies, including Scrum, XP, and Rapid Prototyping. They stopped doing significant design work. In many cases, they had accumulated a significant amount of technical debt, making them slower and slower. Initially, doing “2-week sprints” (a core of Scrum) made them feel faster. Now many of the teams were spending their sprint times doing rework. Rework is not faster. It makes the whole organization slower in achieving speed to value.

I suggested to each of these teams is to claim ownership over whatever methodology they were using. I suggested customizing the methodology to fit their environment and their needs.

With my encouragement, each of those clients added design methods that worked for them.

With that addition, they got faster.

If you need speed, you have to design for speed.

Yours in the calm pursuit of excellence,

Alan Willett

“Watch the blade, not the soldier, Madoc told me many times. Steel never deceives.”— Holly Black

“Alan, we could really use your help in running our upcoming strategy sessions,” sighed one of my long-time best clients.  This client does very well at many things, and I was thrilled to be able to help.  I said, “Certainly.  Can you provide me the results of any previous strategy sessions you have held?”

Over the next day, I received the results from the previous three strategy sessions.  As I read the documents, I was stunned.  Although the words were different, each of the strategy sessions said essentially the same thing.  The leadership knew very clearly where they wanted to take the organization.  Their vision had not wavered across the three years.  However, they had failed to make any progress on getting to that new paradigm.

I went back to the executive and explained that their problem was not setting a direction. Their problem was in getting there. We transformed the strategy event into a strategy and “move forward fast” event.  

The following are a few of the key decisions I had them make.

• To achieve the new paradigm, what key things do each of you need to create and do?  
• What expectations do you need to set for your suppliers, customers, and the people who work for you?
• What training do you need to provide?
• How much money and time do you need to invest in each of these things to happen?

With those established, I moved them to the two most critical questions:

• What will you take out of your current schedules and current activities to make this new paradigm happen?
• And the most important question of all:  What commitments can you accomplish in the next two weeks?

They each promised to each other as the leaders of this organization to make it happen.  They further committed to meet every two weeks to decide on the next steps to ensure success.

Another time an executive asked me for my definition of “strategy.” 

I said, “It is simple. Where do you put your time?”

She said, “Oh my. We have a strategy problem.”

The team I was working with was successful in changing where they put their time.

I have three questions for you.

• What will you take out of your current schedules and current activities to make this new paradigm happen?
• And the most important question of all:  What commitments can you accomplish in the next two weeks?

Yours in the pursuit of excellence,

Yours in the calm pursuit of excellence,

Alan Willett