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The Speed God?

Transformation is word of the day! Darwin-chart[1]

Transformation is permanent migration to a new & improved stable state “not a step change that can shift back to original/previous state“ over time! It is an irreversible process with progressive results “seamless and complete” at every stage! Nature/ Science shows transformation takes its own time! But we don’t have one.

In today’s one-minute culture, Speed is God and Time the Devil!

What we eat, how we live, how we learn/un-learn, how we deal – with people, money and every bit of life has moved into fast, furious, mobile – online, on-demand, any time/ every time – 24X7, 365!!!! Speed is what we go after and time is what we would like to fight.

We would like to win over – Time! Would like to reduce – response time, cycle time, creation time, usage time, wait time, healing time – anything that stops “The Speed!”

So, we prefer – quick wins, quick fixes, early trials, walk-in surgeries, one-page/one-slide view of a big report/strategy; executive summary v/s full proposal/business case; one-minute guides/managers; all answers and solutions now! Not just that, answer/solution should be in simple, easy-to-use steps. Only Gain and No Pain!

What’s wrong with this?

Nothing – in simple terms! But what it leaves behind is – an illusion of success, flaws in planning leading to failed execution, a lot of ‘mile-wide-inch-deep experts!’

Masterpieces take time – a lot of time and patience – to think, create and use. At the same time, they last longer! So is “true transformation!”

Making something happen takes time – definitely more than a minute!

What to pray for – Speed or Time?

Instead of too many broken pieces not adding up to any picture, one or two masterpieces are worth this life!

Let SPEED be GOD but BLESS the TIME!

~

how to innovate by Creating problems?

It is very evident that only “Individuals” innovate and “Businesses” extract value out of these innovations!! It is also believed that “group thinking” will not bring new ideas. But it will definitely help in putting ideas to work!! So, if we are part of a business and interested in innovation, what should we do?

If our business has a lot of engineers and managers, then chances are bright that what they know well is – only problem solving! This might be attributed to the training, orientation and experience they get throughout their careers. Not their fault. These folks are hardly taught how to research, invent or be creative at work – when the boundary of their domain is kept very open/vague!! I guess that’s why there are so many authors, trainers and tools living on the need to inculcate the habit of innovation in businesses, today than ever before. Most of us who have used these great resources know how sustainable these efforts are…. No offense to the means. But the end is always an open well!

In my quest of finding how to solve this puzzle in own area of work, one of the means I have found useful is – forcefully creating a set of problems out of every opportunity and letting the same to be solved by a set of three individuals for a reward!

Key thing is to define these problems diligently and fixing a deadline of not more than 2 weeks for the result. Any thing beyond two weeks is a sure shot failure if it is purely an internal initiative! At the end of two weeks, these individuals present their solution and defend how effective they are for the defined problem. This results in a wonderful experience for those in audience and creates a platform for new ideas as well. Then the same three folks are asked to stitch one solution out of their pieces + what they gathered in the meeting and make it work for the situation in hand within next 1 week. So, at the end of three weeks, there is a 90% chance of a real innovative solution that can be shamelessly applied across similar situations at work.

This has worked in both situations – finding a technical solution to a management problem and a management solution to a technical problem! Mostly, the final one is a combination of these two and addresses a business problem!

Also, this has been useful in both peace and war times of a work situation due to – the “time-boxing” phenomenon coupled with lot of “execution” than “thinking” – that generally forms part of innovation – by definition, if not design!

There are several good models that one can explore, experiment and adopt based on their own comfort level of risk & associated reward. One such interesting model is by Jeffrey Paul Baumgartner. Really powerful in representation and effect that it can create when practiced routinely….

 

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~ Innovation, truly is a journey than an end! So, we can continue to find more routes, companions and tools to help with – “Problems” are one of them 😉

Getting & Keeping Everyone on the same page!

Team work is successful only when everyone is on the same page – all the time! Nothing new about this one! So what? 

In our technology enabled virtual world, we have every possible solution to be in touch – real-time, all the time! But what has this done to the fine art of being on the same page?

Here is an interesting study result of a behavioral pattern analysis ran over last 14+ months.

  1. Over 70% of the time, people do not read the page they are ON! – blame it on browsing habit cultivated over a period of time!
  2. Over 85% of the time, people will have an average of 4 applications running on their system – attention span being reduced frequently – blame it on computing power of devices we use!
  3. Over 84% of the time, people keep open over 3 to 5 communication channels – Mobile phone (SMS, MMS, 2-3 E-mail accounts, Twitter, Face book, IM etc), Laptop (with similar sub-channels), Landline, open door, etc…. when they are in any meeting/discussion! either in a room or over a telephone bridge!! – guarantees poor attention span!
  4. Over 75% of the time people are part of over 4 critical projects that are not necessarily connected either in task relationship or outcome/result dependency – personal, official, family, society etc… included.! – blame it on multi-tasking, highly ambitious lifestyle? – guarantees mediocre contribution across projects!
  5. Over 60% of the time people have some emergency to battle – midst of a critical project cycle – own, family, friend or societal! – contributed by health, litigation, career, competition etc – blame it on work-life balance? – guarantees unpredictable attention/ availability issues between serious tasks!

So, what do we do to get and keep everyone on the same page – all the time?

One of the best practices voted by dreamer doers in the crowd as the blockbuster:

Believe in the power of three! 

– Keep only three projects, communication channels and goals active at any point of time!

– Keep only three deliverables for a given period and kill all activities that do not relate to these deliverables.

– Keep status and planning review to a period of three. E.g: Weekly status should talk about previous, current and next week; Monthly should cover – last month, this month and next month, etc…

– Keep only three people accountable/working for any given deliverable.

– Keep any deliverable developed in three phases – owned by one of the member in rotation : ensures accountability to overall results, provides natural redundancy and risk protection.

– Keep only three messages in any communication/presentation/ writing – including restricting a project report & recommendation to just three items!

– Keep only three problems to solve for any given period.

– Always develop three independent, compelling solutions for every problem,,,, only three items in agenda for a meeting,,,,and so on!

This is simple and powerful. When made a habit, will be effective too…

Wise men say, every habit requires at least a continuous practice for “three” weeks to be effective!

Worth a serious try….