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+?

Read This If You Need Strong Monday Focus

This is a sneaky one because almost everyone does it.

Choose the right domain name.Design the right logo.Develop the 5 year business plan.

Get all your ducks in a row.

And that’s exactly the problem.While most of us are out there “thinking through” the problem, our competitors are already done with version 1 of the prototype and getting feedback from customers.It’s so easy to get caught up in the easy stuff because it feels like it matters. It’s much more difficult to ask yourself: “what’s the hard part of my project?”If your project doesn’t have a hard part then you don’t have a project—it’s probably a hobby or dead end.Steve Blank used to say (and I guess he probably still does say) “Get out of the building and talk to customers.”

No matter what your problem is, the people you’re solving it for know the answer.

Example:

Need better sales copy?Go read some of your customer reviews and testimonials.That’s way faster, easier, and cheaper than taking a course on copywriting and reading the top 5 books about sales strategy.

You don’t need to optimize, yet. You need to start.

The time you’re spending making it perfect is the time you could have spent getting the traction you need to then have the opportunity to have something to optimize.You know that little yellow “buy” button on Amazon’s website?You better believe that they spent a LOT of time and energy optimizing it. And they should, because they have a bazillion customers.If you don’t have a bazillion customers, you’re killing yourself by focusing on the wrong work!

2 Minute Action:

What’s the thing you’ve been dreading doing? Do that first.What’s the feedback cycle you’re getting on your work? Could it be more frequent or more actionable? Ask your supervisor or colleague, today.Give yourself permission to have an ugly, embarrassing website (or none at all!) and re-center your focus on the hard stuff.The discipline early on is going to pay dividends later.It’s Monday, people. Let’s start this week off strong.