FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
August 30, 2005
Leading Ideas: Progress Isn't Linear
"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." -- T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), from the poem Little Gidding
Currently I'm working with a client that's slowly building market share with a new software product. One of the biggest hurdles to sales has been the education of the sales channel. Just when they think a certain partner has "gotten it," the partner stumbles in the next several deals. While frustrating, it's become obvious that this is part of the process -- continually revisiting the basics to hammer out the nuances. It's the only way everyone gets smarter and better.
Something to consider:
Progress isn't a straight line. It's a series of consecutive loops that double back on themselves. Weeks, months, and even years into a journey, you can find yourself faced with challenges that you thought you'd conquered long ago. It can give you the illusion that you haven't progressed -- and that you're back where you started.
However, don't be fooled. That's never the case. Each step of the journey opens your eyes to nuances you missed in the past.
Something to try:
To get smarter and better on your projects, hold what the US Army calls "After Action Reviews": a structured process of looking at lessons learned. The Army offer the following checklist as a guide to making them successful:
1. Project objectives are reviewed.
2. There's an exploration of what went well.
3. There's an exploration of what could have gone better.
4. They're done in a timely manner.
5. A culture of learning is created.
6. A skilled facilitator is facilitating.
7. Everyone feels heard.
8. There's a discussion of how the learning applies to future scenarios.
9. Notes are recorded.
10. The learning is shared with others in the organization.
Questions: How do you ensure your team learns from experience?
Posted by Doug Sundheim at August 30, 2005 10:55 AM | Category: leadership |
3 Comments
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You will need a very good facilitator to get the developers and the sales team on the same page!
yes.
and a an extremely clear cut process architecture.
but then it works
dough, to offer my answer to your question:
i actually learnt a lot in one project and it was also for a client where the ceo was an old top gun pilot. this project was - let's say - big. around five companies had been acquired in europe and in the us and now had to be integrated under one roof. around 180 products (capital goods) had to be transformed into one single all new design language. 3 product design studios had to be coordinated, a number of graphics design studios (also for the interfaces), pr, wording experts... and so on.
this ceo was a great guy. he knew one thing: in a - non linear project like this one - where numbers cant guide you, you have to a) be bold and b) give everybody involved the maximum security - means, you have to absorb all - natural - insecurity.
so: define responsibilities and stick to that. define the goal and stick to that. have a ground shaking kick-off. play your goals openly to the groups that will bring them to reality. give them time to do so. define this time precisely. then get everybody together again (upward reporting always in reference to the goal of this project phase). then review. then downward reporting as clear feedback to the individual contribution.
changes in decissions and directions may only be made in the defined review phase. but then you make them clear and unmistakably - just as clear as the inital direction has been communicated.
from my experience with delicat projects like in design and innovation you can have a clear winner with sharpcut processes and with process discipline. why? because these processes create the space you need, they create the freedom you need to create and they give you the security to learn and to make mistakes.
actually in the project in question the newly defined corporate color scheme, which was defined in an early stage - was kind of daring and a little bit strange for the industry. it was only put down after 1.5 years of already working on the product design execution in the various sectors. i often thought: was that bad, that something as fundamental as this (and as obviously odd) was only changed that late in the project? no, it was not. it was actually this entrepreneurial decisiveness - make a point, be true to your decissions, give security (and change it when it breaks) - that we all needed. the deciciveness of the ceo and the very simple - and very efficient process architcture had made this quite gigantomanic project possible.