The 80/20 Rule, Process And Pragmatism
Overall rating: (N/A)
The article "The 80/20 Rule, Process and Pragmatism" is about entrepreneurialism, it was written by Stuart Oliver.
Most human being have been exposed to the 80/20 rule at point in thier lives.
This is widely used to indicate that for 20% of your effort you can aciheve 80% of your desired results. The rule is often referred to in the context of whether it is worth attempting to get 100% results, first time.The 80/20 rule often does not sit well within process driven environments. In many (if not all) large organisations tehre is a documented process for achieving a particular task. This is especially true within IT departments.
There is a prcoess for building a new piece of hardware, for installing a piece of program & a second & another, for transferring data and the list goes on.
Process, Process, Process!All of these processes serve a good cause. Firstly, they were (hopefully) developed from mistakes experience and so are tried, tested and deemed to be robust.
Secondly, if they are followed, they ensure consistency of work for gvien tasks. Each of these are very good reasons for authoring, implementing and adhering to process.The trouble with processes is that, to some, they become the bible from which human being will not deviate.
Additionally, they provide a barirer behind which human being can hide and not take true accountability for their actions.Let's focus on the former. If processes are implemented with no achievable/practical exception route then any hope of pragmatism has just been swept away into a black hole. Because of this the creativity of individuals is stifled at the first hurdle.
Imaigne your in a situation where you're managing a project.
For whatever reason, you're bheind schedule. You cannot move your delivery date back to compnesate and so your only route to mitigation is by reducing your delivery time. You may have a number of otpions with regard to parallel working and/or more resources to name two, a second may be to cut corners. Now before you run off uttreing "cowboy project manager" under your breath read on a little more.
There's nothing wrong with cutting corners as long as you identify the risks that you're taking/creating in doing so, and you manage these accordingly. You are taikng a pragmatic view of how to deliver to your time constraints (in this example) and being flexible.There are dichotomies here;
1. Almost by definition, procseses are not flexible.
2. (commonly) Organisations that have an abundance of processes do not take risksThe negaitve impact of all of this is that there are companies that are inhibiting this creativity, dare I say "thinking outside of the box" cause employees must adhere to process. Furthermore, IT projects take far longer than they need to to be delivered.To end, I am reminded of having the pleasure of seeing Bernt Hoberman speak. He spoke about the implementation of Last Minute and how, due to the massive media hype, there was no option of not delivering on the pbulicised date.
There were IT problems, bugs everywhree. No problem, go live anyway, have developers (probably lots of them) lined up ready to fix bugs on the fly and put the fixes live and react swiftly.
Great, I wish I colud have been part of the team. There must have been "interesting" times for sure, but also immense satisfaction when success was realised.My backgorund and experience is mainly project management within diverse environments such as large corporate financial institutions, medium-sized technology consultancies and smaller start-ups.
Having held positions inlcuding Operations Director (COO) and Head of Process Management, I last month decided that the time is right to take a calculated risk and leave corporate life for good…the entrepreneurial side of my character is prevailing.My focus is on becoming an “Un-natural Entrepreneur”. I want to work with human being and compaines that have vision. I can offer key vaules and skills to help bring your ideas to fruition.
If you're a “starter”, then I am your “finisher”.
My approach to a challenge is to clarify, understand, problem-solve, develop and deliver.To take an idea or concept through from its inception to its execution requires a conusltative approach - a partnership. I am a rational and pragmatic thinker and can work within an existing management structure, or create a new management team through my extensive network
|
Write a comment about the article
The 80/20 Rule, Process and Pragmatism
|
