The waste of misdirected effort

Imagine working on a task or project and later finding that much of what you’ve done isn’t needed, that you'd kept heading down a path that wasn't necessary.

I noticed a colleague working on a project recently, spending hours and days preparing and producing some work and ... it’s not needed. It was never needed. They estimated they'd spent a week of time, at a minimum - all of it not needed.

Time could have been better directed towards more valuable activities.

We make many decisions every day about what we’re doing; I doubt we’re truly thinking about what’s the best use of our time. We get caught up in activities and tasks that we spend way too much time on - disproportionate to their value or their return to us or others.

The 'sunk cost fallacy' drags us in and we don’t want to turn around and head back out because we wrongly believe we need to stay the course and keep on down this path. But we don’t have to.

It’s never too late to call time on something that’s not right or not valuable or not worth it. No matter how far you’re along the 'wrong' path.

Be willing to call ‘stop’ or ‘time’ or say ‘hang on a moment; can we pause here?’ and then shift to the more valuable path.

Determine the minimum effective dose

What’s the least you could do, the least that’s required?

Some people think the world is going to ruin, that quality will drop if we don’t do our bestest of the very best of the best on every single thing we work on.

Oh sure, high quality and attention to detail matters, but not on everything! Keep quality for the things that really matter.

The whole minimum viable product (MVP) strategy is an example of doing just enough of the valuable stuff for a product or service to get it ready to put it out there.

So what’s the least you need to put in? Do that and then test or validate it.

Oh, and there’s the minimum effective dose strategy too. Medicos and pharmaceuticos know about identifying what’s the minimum amount of a drug or treatment that will ‘do the job’. (There’s the ‘do no harm’ mantra in there too.)

Let's play the same game. Stop doing harm to your self, your mind (and others) thinking you need a maximum dose of something (or everything) ... or that more will make it better.

Your good enough is likely good enough. Go test and validate it sooner than you think you can, to see how good enough it really is. That’s a minimum effective strategy that will bring some mega results.

Overcooking the work - Overworking the cook

It was a reality cooking show and a competitor ruined the protein for all of the meals by overcooking it. In the bin! What a waste!

This can happen in our everyday life. When we have a task to complete we can keep cooking and cooking it, trying to make it better. Then at some point it’s overdone, overcooked. What a waste!

It isn’t only the waste of effort; also the waste of energy, time, resources, power, space, people ...

Even though time is our most precious resource, we often act as if we - and others - have plenty of it. We still get distracted everyday, overcooking, overthinking and overworking, getting dragged deep deep deep into the work of our ‘cook’ - whatever the 'cook' is for you.

The kitchen's 'rare/medium/well done' scale is a useful analogy to work out how much your task needs to be cooked.

It’s best to scope out the minimum amount of work required (so you can then test or validate) before proceeding any further. You don’t need to go for well done, initially ... ever.

Where might you be overcooking something at the moment? Have you checked with others, validated your thinking or tested out your progress? Pause and give it a taste test.

Fix a fundamental first

Before you go all wow with new initiatives, first identify processes or systems that drive your customers crazy.

Do you know what they are? Rather than creating cool new whatevers, fix a fundamental.

Like how customers give you their money. A leading Australian utility have a nightmare loop going on for me at the moment:

Bill is due

Click on email link to make payment

Directs to download an app

Done that already

Attempt login on app

Don’t have a password

Create new account

Account already exists

Use one time code

Code arrives - Code expired

Try password reset

Link arrives - Link expired

Try another code

Code arrives - Incorrect code

Use ‘make a payment’ on www

Directs to download an app

Try ‘my account’ on www

Provide email or mobile to login

Account doesn’t exist/isn’t verified...

😣Aaaargh!

This is stuff that’s worth fixing.

And if you’re ‘ironing out kinks’ with your system, make other options that are:

➡️possible

➡️accessible

➡️feasible and

➡️visible ... now-ish.

It’s a valuable thing to a customer, to part with their money to you easily and painlessly.

Action: Find out what pains your customers about your systems. And if you don't know, get in touch with them to find out

It may not be all planned out and certain

I received a call from a company wanting guidance on transitioning to new-ish ways of working. We talked about why they wanted to do this, yet they also wanted a plan, a document that showed what would happen when so they could ‘roll it out’ across the business.

But here’s the thing: as the world is all uncertain and changing, so too might this change or transformation process. The way it starts may not be how it continues or how it ends.

As the team learns more, they’ll hopefully try more. As they try more and experiment more, they’ll learn more. And so this evolution happens of learning, experimenting and learning.

There’s a kind of irony here. If we need to begin working in some more agile, adaptive and responsive ways, it will mean we’ll need to be more agile, responsive and adaptive.

We can’t do it by being controlling and coercive and delivering 186-slide PowerPoint decks. It doesn’t mean no plan but it does mean being more adaptable. Throughout. Stay adaptable, responsive, interested in what’s next.

Action: Talk about expectations of change. Some people want detailed information; others are okay seeing how things change, unfold or evolve.