Reality to Business

According to Esther Dyson, she spends the most time in her 15 board positions and 50 business relationships getting companies to “face reality” and “ask the questions everyone is afraid to ask”. Such is the power of a person who is not involved in the day-to-day; the power to ask objectively, the ability to bring the face of reality to a business situation.

As a resolution for this year, ‘Ideas’ will focus on bringing reality to your projects. This is a complex task, subject to many interpretations of reality. (Let’s be clear that our definition is unrelated to ‘Reality TV’.)

Three Ideas to Bring on Reality

Get Visual: Many of the people you have to communicate with are visual thinkers. They need a chart on the wall, a drawing on the whiteboard, or (heaven help us) a PowerPoint. Look for new and creative ways to help them visualize your project, product, customer, or market.

Look at the talk: We have talked a lot over the past year that the majority of the message content is in the body language of the speaker. The next time you are in a live meeting, pick one speaker and take particular note of what their expressions and movements add or subtract from the impact of their message. See something that is inconsistent with their words? Ask a question!

See the Quality: The best way to assure quality in a product development is to have the quality team start before the development team. While there are well documented methods of inspections, reviews, and best practices, the majority of teams, particularly smaller teams, do little more than skim the surface of those practices. Put your quality leader or team in place ahead of the development team, give them your support, and watch the quality improve.

More on Team Communications

ROI and Project Reality

We have been trying to get people unstuck from using ROI as the primary project screening tool and are making some progress. Is your company stuck on ROI? Send us an email with your name, mailing address and your war story on the good and bad of how ROI is used in your business and we’ll send you a free reprint of “ROI: The Really Outdated Index.”. (Offer limited to North American addresses)

Here is a link to a piece where our ROI article was quoted in “People on Projects” by the Center for Business Practices. We now write a monthly column for that newsletter. Click on the link and check their editor's thoughts.

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