Using the analogy of a production line making widgets …
Take a second to imagine this production line. Now, if a ‘good’ widget (the thing the production line makes) has not been defined then the people who make the widget may have totally different ‘good outputs’ in their mind. They may change things on the production line (all good intentioned) to achieve, in their minds, the desired output. This is very risky! The ‘customer’ will get variation that may well be unacceptable to them.
Thinking about the output isn’t hard. Often, it’s harder to describe/clarify objectively, but to get going, think about these powerful questions using the analogy of the widget line.
Whilst holding up a good widget……
Define what are you looking at, what are you looking for (why is that important)?
The widget line is not real but I’m hoping this created a clearer image.
Last week at Cabonne Shire Council I (Ben) was updating an agenda for a weekly asset sharing review. As I was typing up the new (and improved) agenda I stopped and thought about this.
“The review went well, we have X. What have we got at the end?”
If I don’t know this, if it’s not objective, how can I then create an agenda to get us there? The answer is I can’t! Well, in fact I can (it’s easy) but I can’t expect it to meet the desired output, if that output has not been clearly defined.
Start with the end in mind.