Direction


Guiding and owning our success through planning, ideas and goals.

 
 

Planning

Where and when possible, data and quantitative insight should be presented to support an idea, project, or initiative.

Where this is not possible, frame it as a hypothesis based on other factors (such as prior experience, intuition, etc.), and acknowledge that you are asking others to have faith in you. Seek to quantify your intuition.

It is very easy to become overwhelmed by an abundance of data when qualifying an idea, which makes it even more important to be hyper-clear on the most relevant pieces of data that support the “a-ha” insight.

When presenting data in support of an initiative, I have found it helpful to be able to answer the following three questions clearly:

So what?

What about this number is important? Why is it important to the thesis we are discussing? What does this data suggest as a long-range insight, prediction, or watch-out? A number increasing is not always good; similarly, a number decreasing is not always bad.

Now what?

What are we going to do about it? Who needs to mobilize to take action? Can we control it on our own, or do we need support from others (internal or external)? Prepare suggestions for discussion, even if you do not have all the information.

Why do I care?

How is this meaningful or insightful? Is this cause for concern or the need for a deeper understanding? Who else should be informed? What could happen if we do nothing? Why do you have this point of view?

 

Presenting Ideas

When it comes to presenting ideas, I have found that strong plans have three key components:

Conceptual:

What is the idea we can rally behind? What is the vision for the project? What insight and data support the idea or market fit? When I close my eyes and listen to this idea, can I see it, feel it?

Structural:

How do we get there? What are the milestones and moments on the critical path? What are the assumptions and key variables in making the case? Who is going to help make this a reality? Which teams? What resources are needed? Show me. Break it down.

Tactical:

What are the building blocks? What is on the critical path that gets the project from 0–1? From 1–2? What are the connected dependencies? Can you independently control all of them? If not, what do you need to make it happen?

 

Goals

You need them. We need them. For life, for work, for yourself. Goals are important to determine where we are going and to help us get clear on the desired outcome.

What success looks like and how we will measure it is something I expect us to be clear on before we get started.

These are some of the questions and thought processes I use when approaching goal setting:

What are we cooking?

  • What is the end destination (goal), the tradeoffs we will face, and the principles that will guide our approach?

    What does success look like? What are the metrics that prove we have succeeded? What does a good job look like? What about an excellent job?

    We can’t do everything, so we will likely have to make tradeoffs. To achieve X, what Y do we have to cut or reprioritize? Do we need to inform any cross-functional teams or stakeholders? Do we need help from other teams to accomplish our goal?

    How are we prioritizing our goals? Are they all equal? Unlikely.

What are the ingredients?

  • What is the output we want to achieve, and how do we get the best possible inputs?

    Which inputs create which outputs? This is likely multi-dimensional—one input can create a series of outputs—but which output do you want to significantly move? Does it have a cascading impact on other metrics or teams?

    Can you control the input? If not, why? How can you influence or control it? Do you need help from another team or individual? What are the dependencies?

    What is the weighting of each input and its relationship to the outputs?