Business Reminder : How To Quickly Succeed
1. MAKE THE REQUIREMENTS LESS DUMB
“Step one: Make the requirements less dumb. The requirements are definitely dumb; it does not matter who gave them to you. It’s particularly dangerous when they come from an intelligent person, as you may not question them enough. Everyone’s wrong. No matter who you are, everyone is wrong some of the time. All designs, processes and assumptions are wrong, it’s just a matter of how wrong"
2. TRY AND DELETE PART OF THE PROCESS
“Step two: try very hard to delete the part or process. If processes are not being added back into the flow at least 10% of the time, it means that not enough parts are being deleted. The bias tends to be very strongly toward 'let’s add this part or process step in case we need it'. Additionally, each required part and process must come from a name, not a department, as a department cannot be asked why a requirement exists, but a person can.
3. SIMPLIFY OR OPTIMIZE
“Step three: simplify and optimize the flow. This is the most common error of a smart person is — to optimize something that should simply not exist."
4. ACCELERATE CYCLE TIME
“Step four: accelerate cycle time. You’re moving too slowly, go faster, or make things help go faster. But don’t go faster until you’ve worked on the other three things first. During a wrongheaded process you should simply stop, not accelerate. "If you’re digging your grave, don’t dig it faster.”
5. AUTOMATE
The final step is: automate. An important part of this is to remove in-process testing after the problems have been diagnosed. If a flow is reaching the goal consistently, then and only the should automation be done.
Bonus Step:
Re-evaluate the step, process or design frequently.
Even better would be to setup weekly, biweekly scrums.
