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 these thoughts require an acceptance of being wrong. An acceptance that the first solution, based on what is currently known, just might be faulty. The only way to find out is to build something and get more information – either from the customers, the technology team, or the prototype itself.
Every instance I’ve seen where a project team wasn’t able to easily define an interaction was due to lack of information. Similarly, every instance I’ve seen where defining an interaction has reached Heated Debate, the available information was faulty. A quick call to a customer or developer diffused the situation immediately.
absolutely. I work in IT management and fully agree. In leading projects there are a number of points where you must balance the available information against the need to move forward. The loss associated with projects stagnating can become insurmountable. You must be agile, quick and continously push the project teams to bring individual obstacles, as well as the entire project, to a close.