This can be your ++ criteria when you interview a prospective team member.
I quoted Frazelle's 1st Law of Delegation in a work meeting today. Thanks for the wisdom @jessfraz 😉 pic.twitter.com/ol4DH4vnLZ
— Dustin Kirkland (@DustinKirkland) January 17, 2018
Automation can be
"Release your idea into the market. See how it is being adapted. Then take the decision to invest time and energy in building a complete system around your idea."
This is the suggestion I usually give to my clients, particularly to the boot-strapped start-ups. Starting small, only with the core features, and releasing to the audience as v1 is what is usually termed as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
Once an MVP is validated, clients can then focus on rebuilding the platform from scratch for the holistic vision of the idea keeping in mind for scalability, reliability and security.
WordPress fits best for MVP needs. Apart from the out-of-the-box features such as the various content types, WordPress is supported by robust e-commerce features with payment integrations, readily available themes, newsletter integrations, analytics tools to measure traffic and conversion rates, and smart forms solutions.
MVP also makes senses for a project with a huge scope. Slicing the project's scope into smaller chunks with iterative releases. The first release focus in this case always is to have core features out for the users.
When MVP doesn't work -
Read – http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/11/when-minimal-viable-product-doesnt-work.html
This sentence was the foundation of Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/).
Likewise, in ongoing revenue overviews & forecasts, it can be a tendency to evaluate a project or account solely on the basis of metrics such as revenue/month or revenue/billed developer. Good or consistent numbers are correlated to an healthy client relationship.
These numbers can be deceiving, as these do not factor the client feedbacks. There are always chances that clients can be unhappy but either they can’t convey it because of lack of feedbacks mechanism, or they can’t take any steps to deal with it.
Usually, client unhappiness can go unnoticed for weeks or months. When those are observed, it can be too late to take any corrective measures. Probably, client might have already made their minds to move on.
As a senior executive, ensure that Account Manager for client project takes ongoing feedbacks from client and address any reported issue immediately. Sometimes there are just small misunderstanding between teams which when addressed help to not compound into bigger issues.
Similarly, also take your team’s feedbacks. It can be also a case that even the team members can have issues that should be taken care of.
Image Credits – https://twitter.com/nosuchtweets
A regular ongoing project has multiple tasks/modules being executed on day-to-day basis. Client’s life becomes really easy when they get regular updates about what’s going on. Predictability (more on that soon) of updates ensure there is no anxious moment for them.
But at the same time, there should also be a room for demos too. All the updates are fine till client get curious what’s actually is being built.
Let your clients know when they could expect demos of the ongoing work. Weekly, bi-weekly or maybe have a QA site where latest codes are pushed at end of the day. Let your client see what’s being worked upon.
I usually roadmap a project with demos in mind. For example, what is the smallest feature set that my project teams can show in two weeks, then in 4 weeks and so on. The initial demos can be just the bare-bone of the requirement, something really raw.
For agile projects, demo anyways is scheduled at the end of each sprint and here having a QA site works best.
You read it right, don’t hire for skills. But hire for attitude, attitude to succeed. People with achiever attitude will find their own way.
The excerpt below is my go-to mantra while hiring new members to my team:
Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not. Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something bigger than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and you’ll be stuck with whoever’s left.
A very important question that every company should ask itself before delving into something.
A critical mistake in company building is asking ‘can we do this’ when you should be asking ‘should we do this’.
— Steve Cheney (@stevecheney) September 29, 2015
Create a 8 slides presentation in 45 minutes about this new venture. Assume that this presentation will be for a potential investor. I am very sure that by the time you will reach slide #4, you will get to know your answer.
Why 45 minutes? Because if you can’t gather your thoughts in 45 minutes, you will not be able to do it even in 45 hours.
The biggest question I faced while working with a product I am leading. There was always a doubt, whether customers will like this product or not? Should I get more testing done? Should I revisit any business logics? When should I target to release? The answer I finally got was very simple – Right Now.
I recall lines from this article by Matt
if you’re not embarrassed when you ship your first version you waited too long.
Just ship your product and let customer give you feedbacks. I am getting some amazing feedbacks from the product I released a week ago. Some of the feedbacks are shaping up the product in amazing ways, plus the great inputs that are helping my team to update the documentations and manuals.
If your product is one of a kind and you think its unique, just roll out the 1.0 at the soonest and get your Being First advantage.
Image Credits: http://www.marcpina.com/
Season 2014-15 started with a mixed bag of expectations for Brendan Rodgers’ men. Some were hopeful to see more of the style of play that took Liverpool close to BPL silverware last season. But many didn’t count them in for new season’s title challenge as BR’s ‘Death by Football’ style was expected to take a hit after Luis Suarez left to join the Catalans.
First three games of the season started with some promise but cracks started to appear after Tottenham away win. Daniel Sturridge got a knock in this match and that made him available for next few months. This meant Reds lost both the strikers, who collectively scored around half of the 101 goals last season.
After seeing the low of loosing 3-1 to Crystal Palace by throwing away one goal lead, LFC has come a long way. The signings are gelling well, clean sheets are getting frequent and the ‘marquee signing ‘ Balotelli is showing his commitment to Anfield.
As I see, the first half of the season presented some very important managerial lessons, particularly for senior management while working with second line of command.
Instead build a team of performers with high predictability.
LFC’s last season was all about Suarez. His commitment and skills single-handedly tore down the opponents. BR gauged this before the season started and switched to 4-4-2 diamond formation, which suited Suarez’ playing style. Rest of the squad was trained to get maximum out of the diamond. This strategy gave BR great results, but as I thought, only till Suarez stayed.
Life after Suarez is classic example of the downside of building team around a star. None of the formations; 4-4-2 diamond,4-4-3 , 4-3-2-1; gave any results as team lacked the deft finish touches of the genius.
As an entrepreneur, if you have a business plan built around a star developer/analyst/designer than you should have a backup who can fill-in those shoes when needed.
Seeing an exit from Champion’s league without registering a single win, fans wanted the obvious from the club owners FSG – sack Brendan Rodgers. But FSG chose to stick with Brendan keeping faith in his abilities. The trade paid off and LFC are now the only team that remains unbeaten in 2015.
FSG gave BR a free hand to choose new players. Most of the those signings didn’t go well with the Football pundits. Seven months gone and what we see now is a team that is working as a unit, giving outstanding results. You know that when the genius Jose Mourinho admits that Chelsea had a tough game in his post match interviews.
Through out the rough patch, BR looked like a person who took responsibility of the bad results. These are the types of people who takes that extra mile to get good results from their teams. They never pass the buck.
Choose people who can motivate their teams even when things doesn’t goes fine. Even an highly skilled army can loose a battle if their commander lacks motivational skills.
BR did criticize his player when they didn’t perform well but he stood for them, even after loosing. After every loss, I saw a manager who was more determined to get things right and make his squad work harder in trainings.
Just like LFC, your teams might not be performing as expected but the only way to change that around is to take steps to change that around. Identify the people who can do that for you.
Image Credits: This is Anfield
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