The other day, I was talking with a software engineer about a potential project. During the conversation, he asked if I was ever on a project that failed. “Failed?” I’ve worked on thousands of projects and given that more than 50% of project fail. I asked for a definition. “The project didn’t launch,” he responded. …
Category Archives: Productivity
Productivity Tip: Empty Your Dock
Back in the pre-OS X days, I used DragThing religiously to keep applications, websites, and documents at my finger tips. That mentality migrated with me to OS X – put everything in the Dock, keep it handy. Today, I shed it. Inspired partially by my preparation for the Tiger upgrade and partially by my proficiency …
Greater Productivity By Turning Things Off
A couple weeks ago, I was having a tough time focusing. The culprit turned out to be a little red dot in my NetNewWire dock icon – the unread post count. I’ve unchecked that count in the preferences and my ability to focus has increased (Manton Reece did the same). First, biologically, our peripheral vision …
Continue reading “Greater Productivity By Turning Things Off”
An Unexpected Yak Shaving
One of the bathtub faucets has leaked for a couple weeks. Monday, I could no longer ignore it. That same day, Seth Godin introduced me to Yak Shaving. yak shaving: Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real …
Making a Decision is Always Better than Not.
Yesterday, I grabbed a coffee with one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. We were talking about project teams wallowing in the unknown and stalling out. He proclaimed: “Just put a stake in the ground and move on.” His recommendation reinforces Charlie Lazor’s advice, “You really won’t know until you build it.” Both of …
Continue reading “Making a Decision is Always Better than Not.”
Overtime Hurts the Everyone
Late last week, a client and I were discussing a struggling project. The client mentioned his project team regularly works nights and weekends to meet the deadlines he had scheduled. I was stunned. This was months into a years longs project. There are 3 things fatally wrong with this management strategy: It devalues both the …
You Really Won’t Know Until You Build It
I caught Charlie Lazor, talking about building furniture and houses at the University of Minnesota this evening. I found this quote on prototyping invaluable: “We spent so much time arguing whether or not it work, and when we prototyped it, it worked remarkably well. We could have saved so much time, if we had just …
More Slack Keeps Projects on Track
Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of ’emergency’ is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning. – Dwight D. Eisenhower Swap …
Success Comes in Small, Cheap Projects
Instead of spending milions of dollars on “The Superbowl Ad”, why not spend that money cranking out beermat campaigns, till you find one that really works? Using beermats in small, test markets, you could easily create 50, 100 (500? Who knows?) campaigns for the price of one decent Superbowl/TV commercial. It would be a simple, …
Once More, In Half the Time
I apologize for the length of this letter, but I didn’t have time to make it shorter. – Mark Twain Twain was referring to the fact that refining something down to it’s essence takes iteration. Each iteration abbreviates the time necessary to produce and consume the item. I offer the Van Buren Law of Iteration: …