Five things to remember
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How to disagree brilliantly
It’s all too easy to lose focus on what you’re trying to achieve. So it’s helpful to have a manifesto to remind you of your chosen ways of working. Here’s ours.
Process over structure
Any organisation, no matter what size, tends to create a structure for itself. This often dictates the make up of teams and distribution of resources. But most work gets done using processes - which often cross these artificial boundaries. So we will always favour looking at the way in which something is done in order to see how to work more effectively. What is the process for claiming expenses, for example? How is it working? Where are the snags? Where can they be resolved?
Organising over organisation
The company’s structure often leads to the creation of organisation charts and profiles. Again, this is useful for clarity and knowing where people sit, but can get in the way of resolving some of the challenges you’re facing. So we’ll always favour organising a team of experts around the issue you’re trying to solve - regardless of where they sit on the org chart. Get their input into the process for claiming expenses and they’ll see where the issues are much more quickly.
Delivery over management
Once you’ve identified the challenge you’re trying to solve and the team that you’ve got to address it, the most useful thing you can do is get them working on it. Of course, some clarity around vision, aims and objectives is essential, but taking an agile approach organising a project means that the majority of the team’s effort can be given to delivering solutions rather than reporting on them.
Outcomes over activity
Knowing what problem you’re trying to solve will make sure that the team’s efforts are used on addressing the right thing. Too often activities are undertaken ‘because that’s what we’ve always done’ or ‘that seems like the right thing to do at the time’. If you take time to look at what outcome you’re trying to achieve, this will often give you a steer as to the activities that will most effectively help you get there.
Effectiveness over efficiency
Doing things quickly often feels like a good thing to do - but that’s only useful if the thing you’re doing actually works. This is where ‘inspect and adapt’ comes in - you may need a few weeks to see what effect the changes you’re making will have. But basing your decision on evidence of what works and what doesn’t is surely better than doing the wrong thing at pace.
Which one of these principles could help you in a project you’re working on? I’d love to hear what you think.
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