First Time Right (FTR's) via Synergic Decision Making.
FTR's - Is it Important to be always First time Right?
In Project Management we give lot of focus on the Term FTR (First time Right).
It's not Important but "Very" Important aspect with every Project Delivery because by not meeting FTR's would result in the doing things over at the cost of delaying a critical project.
The reality is that taking the time to do things right the first time will virtually always, in the long run, take significantly less time and result in a higher quality in project delivery than it does to do things over. By not doing things right the first time, you will not only trouble yourself (and look bad in the eyes of almost everyone), but you will greatly impact the lives of many others as well.
Why do people make this mistake in the first place?
Clearly they don’t do it intentionally in fact they begin with the very best of intentions, to do their jobs to the best of their abilities in the very best ways possible. They will even often say to themselves, “this time I’ll do it right the first time and not get caught up in downstream problems.”
What changes that idealistic desire?
Pressure from a variety of sources is typically the cause. Such pressure will often cause people to take “shortcuts”, or “force” them to get “something” out quickly that can be “refined” later. We will examine the sources of pressure and how you can best stand up to these pressures.
Internal Pressure
One source of pressure is “Internal” and not based on external forces at all. You are asked to develop estimates of what it will take for you to accomplish a specific task. How much time will it take, including dependencies on others and to others? Being a knowledge worker, you tend to be fairly optimistic, the task looks fairly straightforward, and you think you can complete this task in fairly short order. In developing your estimate you think about the direct implementation of the normal functionality you are implementing and not of all the abnormal cases or error paths. You provide an estimate that you think is reasonable without thoroughly thinking through all that really needs to be accomplished. Once you have provided your estimate you are now, rightfully, expected to deliver on your commitment, and you pride yourself on delivering on your commitments. Then, when you are actually engaged in the implementation, all of the things you didn’t think through, including the exception conditions and error paths, suddenly become self-evident, and you recognise that you didn’t allow the proper amount of time to actually implement all of these cases. But by now you’ve committed to a delivery date and many others are dependent on your delivery. So you make a decision to deliver “something” that can enable them to continue their work, even though what you are delivering is not really complete. You tell yourself that what you have delivered is “good enough” for now and that you will have time to fix it before it will cause any real problems. Of course finding that time will become a problem because you now have many other tasks to deliver and you’ve estimated the time it will take to complete them in much the same way you did with this task. The net result is that you’ve delivered an incomplete “product” (and you know it), but now you’re even deeper in trouble because of this and even more similarly flawed deliveries. You’ve created a crisis of your own making and you’re embarrassed to admit it and don’t see a way to correct the problems. You’re afraid to admit your mistakes and to ask for help.
This is just one example of internal pressure that can lead to not doing things right the first time. Internal pressure can also come from trying to meet team commitments so as to not let your teammates down, getting your task done quickly (even if incompletely) to beat your rival and show him/her up, trying to show off to your boss or others, trying to show that you are the best and the fastest or that you are not the worst or the slowest, simple laziness, or many other reasons. Regardless, you are just fooling yourself, and you’re about to pay the price. Unfortunately, you will also make others pay for your mistakes as well. This simply isn't right; you're supposed to be a professional!
External Pressure
Another source of pressure is “External”. This may be pressure from your boss or your peers to meet deadlines or stay on schedule, or to “show” progress, or to get “something” ready for a demo, or similar reasons. These pressures lead to making the same kinds of mistakes as with internal pressure, and after all, it is still your decision take the “shortcut” and to deliver “something” even though you know it is not right or complete.
So what should you do to avoid making such mistakes in the future?
First, you should resolve that you will not allow yourself to do this, and then stick to this decision. It is your decision to do it right versus doing it over, and you should force yourself to always opt for doing it right. Do not allow yourself to accept delivering half solutions or half-baked deliverables. Setting this frame of mind in yourself, and not accepting less is often a very good start.
Next, comes the “Synergic” Decision making approach, I am introducing a new term here: "Synergic Decision Making". There is a direct correlation between your project success and how many decisions you make that are Synergic. In other words, Synergic decisions are the best and only decisions you should make in life.
But what on earth are Synergic decisions?
Synergic decision making is simply letting your community (Project Colleagues, Mentors etc.) always guide and help you in your decision making. You need to talk to them openly about everything. Transparency, honesty, and, most importantly, trust is key for this to work. Even though the majority of people aren’t that smart in this world, Synergic decision making is the reason why our projects cannot only function, but thrive. Be wise and learn this skill, or else a bunch of clueless people can easily leave you in the dust every time.
Finding the right people to have in your decision making is key as hiding the truth, deception, and nonbelievers (i.e. not believing your facts, ideas, or opinions on the matter) makes Synergic decision making impossible.
WARNING: If someone in your project has an ulterior motivate (deception), not only will it not work, but you will probably end up making the worst decision possible. If you sense someone has an ulterior motive (even if that person thinks it’ll be to your benefit in the end) you need to remove that person from your decision making process. Possibly even your life. In my experience, even confronting them about their ulterior motive doesn’t change anything. They’ll keep playing dumb and still try to influence your decision. If they can’t, then they’ll even start to lie and manipulate you to achieve their ulterior motives.
However, If the only person you have to discuss with has ulterior motives, I would say go ahead and do it. Just take what they say with a pinch of salt and be mindful of bad advice they are trying to give you. As the old saying goes, "Two heads are better than one even if one is a cabbage."
The easiest way to do Synergic decision making isn't to ask for their advice on a situation, but to tell them what has been on your mind lately, what is going on the project you have been working on. From there the conversation will naturally go to Synergic decision making.
Finally, for Synergic decision making to work, people must have a willingness to help. Besides sometimes having an ulterior motive (Internal pressures), they don’t care to hammer out the details like someone who truly cares about you or your project would.
"But I don’t have a colleague I can trust, or I have no colleagues at all."
If you don’t have a colleague or can no longer trust your own colleagues, the best thing you can do is trust your intuition. Your intuition will always push you towards your best decision, but the odds are low that you’ll make that specific, best decision (because the best decision always involves a lot of details and a lot of steps which you probably won’t figure out by simply following your gut).
But what you can also do is ask a stranger for advice. No, you can’t ask them your project specific questions as it is not compliant to do that[for legal reasons] but you can ask them general questions related to project management and stuff by illustrating your scenario in the project.
You may not necessarily get what you want, but you are starting a dialogue that will help guide you towards your most beneficial path. See how that works?
You can plan all you want, but it can never compete against Synergic decision making. Why?
Cause your little amount of research can’t compare to a lifetime of knowledge and experience applied to your specific situation. Now add even more lifetime of experiences (more people) and different ways of thinking about your problem that you cannot. Synergic decision making is your best bet. End of story.
Synergic decision making is really just open communication. If you can do this with people you can trust, then everything will be okay.
And if you still don't understand why Synergic decision making is so critical for your success and happiness, let me give you a quote by Tony Robbins: "The defining factor for success is never resources; it’s resourcefulness."
Synergic decision making is the ultimate form of resourcefulness. People will always think of things you won't.
And at the end, take the time necessary to really think through what you are committing to, and don’t make “assumptions” that are not thoroughly thought through and reviewed (when you ass/u/me, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”!). Be as complete as you can be when preparing your schedule estimates, and when you think you’ve got your estimate ready, go back and review it again, looking for flaws in your approach or assumptions. Have you considered all of the exception conditions and error paths? Have you included your dependencies on the deliveries of others and are they truly realistic? Have you included your deliveries to all of the others who will really need them? Where can things go wrong, and if they do, what are the ways around them? You can never be perfect, but that’s where Synergic decision making helps you to be as thorough and complete as you can.
While this may sound easy and straightforward, very often it is not. It may require you to transparent/open and admit to your boss or others that you didn’t plan properly, or that you didn’t think things through or that you need help that you didn’t anticipate. Still, it is better to do this sooner rather than later. The earlier in the process that problem can be identified and corrected, the less time wasted downstream trying to find and correct the problems (doing things over) and the higher the quality of your work.
Conclusion
To Conclude not doing things right the first time is a false solution, regardless of the reasons. If what you’ve developed is not right, it will have to be made right at some point, and fixing what you have screwed up will almost always take longer than doing it right the first time, and will almost always adversely impact others along the way. Your guiding principle, at work and in life, should always be making Synergic decisions to do things right the first time!
It's not Important but "Very" Important aspect with every Project Delivery because by not meeting FTR's would result in the doing things over at the cost of delaying a critical project.
The reality is that taking the time to do things right the first time will virtually always, in the long run, take significantly less time and result in a higher quality in project delivery than it does to do things over. By not doing things right the first time, you will not only trouble yourself (and look bad in the eyes of almost everyone), but you will greatly impact the lives of many others as well.
Why do people make this mistake in the first place?
Clearly they don’t do it intentionally in fact they begin with the very best of intentions, to do their jobs to the best of their abilities in the very best ways possible. They will even often say to themselves, “this time I’ll do it right the first time and not get caught up in downstream problems.”
What changes that idealistic desire?
Pressure from a variety of sources is typically the cause. Such pressure will often cause people to take “shortcuts”, or “force” them to get “something” out quickly that can be “refined” later. We will examine the sources of pressure and how you can best stand up to these pressures.
Internal Pressure
One source of pressure is “Internal” and not based on external forces at all. You are asked to develop estimates of what it will take for you to accomplish a specific task. How much time will it take, including dependencies on others and to others? Being a knowledge worker, you tend to be fairly optimistic, the task looks fairly straightforward, and you think you can complete this task in fairly short order. In developing your estimate you think about the direct implementation of the normal functionality you are implementing and not of all the abnormal cases or error paths. You provide an estimate that you think is reasonable without thoroughly thinking through all that really needs to be accomplished. Once you have provided your estimate you are now, rightfully, expected to deliver on your commitment, and you pride yourself on delivering on your commitments. Then, when you are actually engaged in the implementation, all of the things you didn’t think through, including the exception conditions and error paths, suddenly become self-evident, and you recognise that you didn’t allow the proper amount of time to actually implement all of these cases. But by now you’ve committed to a delivery date and many others are dependent on your delivery. So you make a decision to deliver “something” that can enable them to continue their work, even though what you are delivering is not really complete. You tell yourself that what you have delivered is “good enough” for now and that you will have time to fix it before it will cause any real problems. Of course finding that time will become a problem because you now have many other tasks to deliver and you’ve estimated the time it will take to complete them in much the same way you did with this task. The net result is that you’ve delivered an incomplete “product” (and you know it), but now you’re even deeper in trouble because of this and even more similarly flawed deliveries. You’ve created a crisis of your own making and you’re embarrassed to admit it and don’t see a way to correct the problems. You’re afraid to admit your mistakes and to ask for help.
This is just one example of internal pressure that can lead to not doing things right the first time. Internal pressure can also come from trying to meet team commitments so as to not let your teammates down, getting your task done quickly (even if incompletely) to beat your rival and show him/her up, trying to show off to your boss or others, trying to show that you are the best and the fastest or that you are not the worst or the slowest, simple laziness, or many other reasons. Regardless, you are just fooling yourself, and you’re about to pay the price. Unfortunately, you will also make others pay for your mistakes as well. This simply isn't right; you're supposed to be a professional!
External Pressure
Another source of pressure is “External”. This may be pressure from your boss or your peers to meet deadlines or stay on schedule, or to “show” progress, or to get “something” ready for a demo, or similar reasons. These pressures lead to making the same kinds of mistakes as with internal pressure, and after all, it is still your decision take the “shortcut” and to deliver “something” even though you know it is not right or complete.
So what should you do to avoid making such mistakes in the future?
First, you should resolve that you will not allow yourself to do this, and then stick to this decision. It is your decision to do it right versus doing it over, and you should force yourself to always opt for doing it right. Do not allow yourself to accept delivering half solutions or half-baked deliverables. Setting this frame of mind in yourself, and not accepting less is often a very good start.
Next, comes the “Synergic” Decision making approach, I am introducing a new term here: "Synergic Decision Making". There is a direct correlation between your project success and how many decisions you make that are Synergic. In other words, Synergic decisions are the best and only decisions you should make in life.
But what on earth are Synergic decisions?
Synergic decision making is simply letting your community (Project Colleagues, Mentors etc.) always guide and help you in your decision making. You need to talk to them openly about everything. Transparency, honesty, and, most importantly, trust is key for this to work. Even though the majority of people aren’t that smart in this world, Synergic decision making is the reason why our projects cannot only function, but thrive. Be wise and learn this skill, or else a bunch of clueless people can easily leave you in the dust every time.
Finding the right people to have in your decision making is key as hiding the truth, deception, and nonbelievers (i.e. not believing your facts, ideas, or opinions on the matter) makes Synergic decision making impossible.
WARNING: If someone in your project has an ulterior motivate (deception), not only will it not work, but you will probably end up making the worst decision possible. If you sense someone has an ulterior motive (even if that person thinks it’ll be to your benefit in the end) you need to remove that person from your decision making process. Possibly even your life. In my experience, even confronting them about their ulterior motive doesn’t change anything. They’ll keep playing dumb and still try to influence your decision. If they can’t, then they’ll even start to lie and manipulate you to achieve their ulterior motives.
However, If the only person you have to discuss with has ulterior motives, I would say go ahead and do it. Just take what they say with a pinch of salt and be mindful of bad advice they are trying to give you. As the old saying goes, "Two heads are better than one even if one is a cabbage."
The easiest way to do Synergic decision making isn't to ask for their advice on a situation, but to tell them what has been on your mind lately, what is going on the project you have been working on. From there the conversation will naturally go to Synergic decision making.
Finally, for Synergic decision making to work, people must have a willingness to help. Besides sometimes having an ulterior motive (Internal pressures), they don’t care to hammer out the details like someone who truly cares about you or your project would.
"But I don’t have a colleague I can trust, or I have no colleagues at all."
If you don’t have a colleague or can no longer trust your own colleagues, the best thing you can do is trust your intuition. Your intuition will always push you towards your best decision, but the odds are low that you’ll make that specific, best decision (because the best decision always involves a lot of details and a lot of steps which you probably won’t figure out by simply following your gut).
But what you can also do is ask a stranger for advice. No, you can’t ask them your project specific questions as it is not compliant to do that[for legal reasons] but you can ask them general questions related to project management and stuff by illustrating your scenario in the project.
You may not necessarily get what you want, but you are starting a dialogue that will help guide you towards your most beneficial path. See how that works?
You can plan all you want, but it can never compete against Synergic decision making. Why?
Cause your little amount of research can’t compare to a lifetime of knowledge and experience applied to your specific situation. Now add even more lifetime of experiences (more people) and different ways of thinking about your problem that you cannot. Synergic decision making is your best bet. End of story.
Synergic decision making is really just open communication. If you can do this with people you can trust, then everything will be okay.
And if you still don't understand why Synergic decision making is so critical for your success and happiness, let me give you a quote by Tony Robbins: "The defining factor for success is never resources; it’s resourcefulness."
Synergic decision making is the ultimate form of resourcefulness. People will always think of things you won't.
And at the end, take the time necessary to really think through what you are committing to, and don’t make “assumptions” that are not thoroughly thought through and reviewed (when you ass/u/me, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”!). Be as complete as you can be when preparing your schedule estimates, and when you think you’ve got your estimate ready, go back and review it again, looking for flaws in your approach or assumptions. Have you considered all of the exception conditions and error paths? Have you included your dependencies on the deliveries of others and are they truly realistic? Have you included your deliveries to all of the others who will really need them? Where can things go wrong, and if they do, what are the ways around them? You can never be perfect, but that’s where Synergic decision making helps you to be as thorough and complete as you can.
While this may sound easy and straightforward, very often it is not. It may require you to transparent/open and admit to your boss or others that you didn’t plan properly, or that you didn’t think things through or that you need help that you didn’t anticipate. Still, it is better to do this sooner rather than later. The earlier in the process that problem can be identified and corrected, the less time wasted downstream trying to find and correct the problems (doing things over) and the higher the quality of your work.
Conclusion
To Conclude not doing things right the first time is a false solution, regardless of the reasons. If what you’ve developed is not right, it will have to be made right at some point, and fixing what you have screwed up will almost always take longer than doing it right the first time, and will almost always adversely impact others along the way. Your guiding principle, at work and in life, should always be making Synergic decisions to do things right the first time!
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