Posts Tagged: urgency

Main — No Comments
7
Mar 10

Fighting Fires instead of Owning the Problem

Jeffrey Phillips: Why is fighting fires more valuable than avoiding fires?

“For some reason we believe that sweeping in and fixing a problem has more drama, and gains more attention, than doing the work to predict and avoid problems.”

I think the problem is also a blame game. If we acknowledged that there were ways we could avoid the fire, then we would implicitly own the problem and more so, be responsible for avoiding the next occurrence. But when the next fire comes, implicitly we’ve now failed. The goal was to avoid the fire, not react quickly. This requires strategic thinking.

So if we never acknowledge there is a change that could make things better, then when the fire comes, we just block and tackle — it is happening to us, not caused by us. No one is to blame for the fire, and thus our only measure of success is our reaction speed.

Blocking and tackling is easy. Strategic thinking is hard.

Main — Comments Off
23
Dec 09

Standford on Multitasking

Media multitaskers pay mental price, Stanford study shows:

“You might think a lot gets done when you multitask, but a study conducted by Stanford researchers Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass and Anthony Wagner says it isn’t so.”

Main — Comments Off
26
Sep 09

On Time vs Accuracy

Uncle Bob, in his talk on software craftsmanship, said “If schedule is more important that accuracy, then I can always be on time.”

It doesn’t get more simple than that. If you want to know which one is more important in your own organization, ask this: If a planned release clearly can not be completed on time, do you cut features to make the schedule, or do you push the schedule out? If you cut features, I can promise you, you are also cutting quality and accuracy too.

Main — Comments Off
17
Jun 09

Knowledge work can’t be done in sound bites

Maggie Jackson says:

“The average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and, once distracted, a worker takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task, according to Gloria Mark, a leader in the new field of “interruption science.”

Interruptions and the requisite recovery time now consume 28 percent of a worker’s day, the business research firm Basex estimates. The risks are clear. As one top executive told me, “Knowledge work can’t be done in sound bites.” “

From Fighting a War Against Distraction via The Practice of Leadership

Main — Comments Off
3
Jun 09

Bring-me-a-Rock Schedule Game

Johanna Rothman writes about the bizarre, but oft-practiced, scheduling game Bring me a Rock:

If this is your first visit to the OC, you’re a bit nervous. After all, these are the executives of the company. You start talking about the project, the benefits to the company, and then a stentorian voice rings out, “When will it be done?”

You think to yourself, Ok, we’ll skip to the end. Aloud, you say, “June 30.” The COO, the owner of the stentorian voice says, “Sorry, not good enough. Give me another date.” You think for a few seconds, and say, “Well, if we cut this feature, we could maybe make June 15.” “NOT GOOD ENOUGH”, exclaims the COO. You’re confused,“ Well, what date did you have in mind?” “I certainly don’t know. You’re the project manager. You tell me.”

Now you’re stuck. Clearly the COO is looking for a particular answer. But what is the right answer? If your palms weren’t sweaty before, they are now. Welcome to the Bring-me-a-rock schedule game.

Very well worth the read.

← Older Entries