Betty was known as a high-energy “doer.” When a critical market-analysis report was due Friday, she emailed it out at 11:59 PM. But the Finance partner spent his Saturday morning correcting Betty’s formulas, because her last-minute scramble broke the pivot tables. On Sunday, the Marketing partner had her own fire drill when they found that Betty used key brand assets, violating corporate standards. Betty went home Friday night feeling like a hero, but her peers spent the weekend cleaning up after her. Soon her leadership stopped assigning her to high-stakes projects because the cleanup cost of her scramble to the finish was too high.
I expect my team members to deliver high-quality outcomes consistently. If their work needs a cleaning crew behind it, they’re not delivering to my standards and adding tech debt or extra work for everyone downstream. I expect them to build a system that produces quality outcomes on time by default and without a dramatic finish. Execution is only half the battle; the other half is the integrity of the delivery. I wouldn’t be as patient as Betty’s management team. I make my execution expectations clear from the start, and I remove scramblers from my team if they can’t meet expectations.
Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto shows how the world’s most high-stakes professionals eliminate the scramble. In your next project, work back from your delivery date and account for the dependencies. Once you have this work-back schedule, set your personal completion time 48 hours before the actual delivery date to give yourself those final two days to ensure quality and finish cleanly.
Suresh