Why The Grumpiest Person Is Your Best Friend
"Who is your grumpiest, most irritable, most frustratingly difficult IT guy?""Can you introduce me to him?"
Sounds crazy, but let me tell you why I wanted to meet this person so much.
I was running a software development team at the time.We were building a data visualization software for a government client--which posed a number of challenges.They were using old technology, which meant that a lot of the cool new features we wanted to add wouldn't work. We had to do things very differently if we wanted to get our customer these new features.They were also prone to a lot of needs for approvals, which meant it was slow to implement anything new.We also were up against personalities and politics, so we needed to make sure that the decision-makers were on our side.
So how do you get this new technology past an IT department so furiously vigilant to foreign antibodies?
You call the IT department and you ask for the most irritable, most frustratingly difficult IT guy who could possibly say "no" to your project.I'm dead serious--I've done this.
You ask for that person and you review your concept with them.
The point is that by winning over a decision-maker (or a decision-influencer) like this, you've done 90% of the work up-front. You didn't build out any code, but you solved a ton of problems before they happened.Make them your best friend and you will have a much better chance of success.On a single phone call, you have now increased outcome quality, decreased cost, and dramatically increased speed-to-market.
2 Minute Action
A call like this probably won't take 2 minutes, but that doesn't mean it won't take 2 minutes to schedule it.Who is someone who could say no to your project? How early on can you get them into your process?If it's not a person, what will happen at the last second that will prevent you from achieving your goal? Budget? Timeline?Take 2 minutes to call that out into the light and schedule the meeting, call, or workshop to address this head-on.By frontloading the work you get to solve problems before they happen.You will have a happier team, a lower cost, and higher quality output.
What's Enough?
Enough is enough.
Does it work? Good.
If it can be better, a good question to ask is "how much better?"
If it costs 10x more to have the "best," but you can get 80% of the way there for 10x less the cost . . . is that really the "best?"If you're NASA, it might be worth it. If that manifold breaks, it could be lost lives and literally millions of dollars.Chances are, your stakes aren't as high as NASA's, so you should probably consider what "enough" is to get the job done.
Also, if it can be better, it's worth asking "how much better does it need to be to get to the next step?"
The difference between 90 mph and 100 mph isn't as big as the difference between 100 mph and 110 mph.Wind resistance increases exponentially and requires a disproportionate amount of fuel and power as the speedometer goes up.Sometimes, the place you're going isn't worth it either.
2 Minute Action
What's one big task you have to do today?Could you make it smaller?Can it be an email instead of a meeting?Can it be an article instead of a novel?Can it be a B- instead of an A+?
Your Meeting Is Starting . . .
Apparently, meetings take up about 15% of a typical organization’s time (citation)Also, iturns out that 91% of meeting-goers day-dream, 39% of people fall asleep in meetings, 73% of people do other work while in meetings, 41% of people complain that meetings are a waste of time, and 96% of people skip meetings altogether.In total, the current estimate is about $37 Billion (with a “B”) of salary expenses are wasted on meetings in the U.S.
2 Minute Action:
The next time you have a meeting and aren’t sure if it wilL be useful, run through these questions real quick. This is your litmus test for productive meetings:What would happen if you didn’t have the meeting? Would it impede progress?Could the meeting really be an email or a Skype meeting instead?If you have to have a meeting, can you do it in a room with no chairs?What’s the purpose of the meeting?Pick one of the following, and you can only pick one. If it’s more than one, skip the meeting.• Inform people about the project• Learn opinions or facts that will help you achieve a success• Discuss the project and gain input from interested parties• Pitch or approve the idea for the projectAfter the meeting, how will you know it was a success?