We closed a contract to smash 4 vases – one per week. We drew up a plan, placed our orders for sledgehammers, practiced on pumpkins and got to work. The sledgehammer was a dull arc in the sunlight as it descended on the first vase. We checked the size of the pieces and verified sufficient granularity to proceed. We had to get a slightly larger sledgehammer, this time with a mahogany handle, but soon vase number two was crashing to the ground. We filmed the destruction of vase number three – the lighting was amazing and we even had little chunks of vase spinning towards the lens in slow motion. We showed the video to the client who loved it. They said we had over-delivered and our cinematography was first class. They were excited to see the final vase smashed to pieces!
But then something went wrong. I went away for a week. When I came back the 4th vase was sitting there and my engineering team was smashing away at the third vase. I asked why and they replied “the fragments aren’t small enough so we bought this great compactor to really grind the pieces down!” I look over and sure enough one of them is vibrating away on top of a pile of powder. The project was running late, resources were being spent on a problem that didn’t exist, and morale hit rock bottom when I told them they were wasting their time.
What went wrong? I didn’t set the high level goals clearly enough, the team were chasing perfection, and there was a communication barrier between the client and the team which caused a diffusion of urgency and misunderstanding of priority. Set goals, stamp out perfection, and get the team talking to the customer!
– Ben O’Brien
StretchSense 