Recently I have been involved in mentoring a team of business analysts. One of the core issues was related to helping others making things happen at a faster pace.

So how are we making things happening? It all starts with a stimulus – an aggression, an emotion or just a thought (e.g. an idea)

Evolutionary speaking, the first way of getting into action was pretty straight forward:

Stimulus –> Action

This is still the most “popular” way we react to physical or emotional stimuli. It might be useful when we face a life threatening situation, but this “auto pilot” mode might be dangerous in a business situation… Luckily, the approach evolved to a better one:

Stimulus –> Thought –> Action

But when more than a thought emerges, a decision needs to be made, so our “equation” becomes:

Stimulus –> Analyze –> Decide –> Action

Here is where most of us would say … enough already. Think for a minute about a more complex situation (such as an e-commerce project), that requires detailed preparation:

Stimulus –> Analyze –> Decide –> Prepare –> Action

This is not the end: everything between Stimulus and Action can be further expanded. The analysis may be preceded by research, the decision could incorporate validation from others and the preparation could include anything between pure resourcing to simulation and testing.

With every evolutionary step, the chain of “making things happen” gets longer. So gets the time and energy spent and, if we add the “several people involved” factor into this equation, the complexity is not just adding up, is multiplying.

But really, is there any way to shorten the time between the stimulus and action while maintaining the robustness of the chain?

Well, while we have an abundance of Agile techniques and fast tracking – they all have limited applicability, as sometimes it is impossible to break down the scope / deliverables and to do parallel processing.

But there is a much better way.

For individuals is call internalization. Think of the time you learned a new skill, say, driving. In early stages, the process was similar to the long chain: analyzing, deciding, preparing, checking, etc. Experienced drivers use the short fuse, from stimulus to action, as they really are on automatic pilot mode.

This also works in the business environment and it comes under several names: procedures, processes, drills, etc. Once a successful path between stimulus to action is found and documented the entire process gets quicker – although the chain is not shortened..

So, it is very important to:

a)    Start by treating a new project by replicating the best practices in that field
b)    After every new endeavor is closed, document the lessons learned
c)    Fine tune the business processes and work procedures according to previous two points (a and b)

What other shorting techniques do you currently use?

How many of us have experienced the following signs of living in a shallow world?

We don’t take enough time to fully engage anymore: there are way too many things on our plates, and we want to taste them all (as they all seem delicious), and even more and more new kinds of nibbles are landing on our daily plates

We  are too easily distracted and even confused by the massive inflow of alternatives: remember the time when the milk was just milk, and not a variety of regular, skimmed, calcium enriched, organic, etc? Sometimes having few choices feels like an easier way to get things handled

We look, too often, how to get just the instant, no-pain solution: instant gratification is driving us cut corners with the least effort. While getting things done more efficiently is what we should aim, abusing it may be a sign of immaturity: chasing only the “quick and easy fixes” like the pain killers, a liposuction or attending a fast-forward course on yachting, deprive us of the confidence going through and learning how to cope without modern help.

We prefer to consume everything in a refined, pre-processed state: I am not talking here just about what we eat or drink. Most of the facts, sounds, thoughts and even emotions have already been filtered by someone else: think of the damaging effects over an immature person being exposed to so many PhotoShopped images

We act as the slaves of the mighty availability: the mobile, the email, the twitter and the social networks, to name a few, are pushing us to react rather to respond. We too often mix up a technological capability with the way way we should engage the world through that piece of technology.

We have a hard time in extracting useful information from the data swamp: we are literally flooded with so many opinions, advices, facts, requests, from so many sources – that sometimes we overlook the important while magnifying the wrong stuff. The one who will bring clarity and relevancy in our worlds, should not be our friend, but our best friend.

We spread our attention, our preparation and our performance too thin: multitasking, dealing with multiple activities, faces, technologies, topics, demands from others are all sapping our energy. So next time not only ask yourself: am I juggling too many balls at once, but am I doing the right thing here?

We allow our feelings to make more and more decisions for us: sensations and excitement are constantly crawling our existence. That is an important reason for which we rush to want too many things, too early, with no resources. When was the last time when you have seen a commercial in which a lolly pop was not animated?

We live less and less our lives: like some automaton zombies, we overly protect ourselves by not learning new things, through avoiding the pain and the hassle of braking worthless habits, by not being in touch of our true feelings through renting the others’ experiences from fake realities (watching movies or gossiping) or just shielding our emotions through evading maneuvers of not engaging with someone, or something, so we won’t get hurt.

The above list is not complete, but may be applicable to the whole range of aspects from our existence: our relationships, activities, possessions, our thoughts and feelings. Find for yourself, where in your life, profession, etc you allow yourself to be too shallow: feel free to bring in your perspective on this.

Have you ever asked yourself which are the very first signs of a person who is immature? As for today I am in the 40+ age category group: but let me make this crystal clear – age does not equal maturity. Also, acting as an adult in one area does not imply acting the same in all the areas – feel free to use the following thoughts as an indicator for those spots where you want to be a grown up:

When learning, the immature is looking to get the tricks first, rather than the fundamentals which has as consequences not being able to go to the next level and hesitation in adding variations (“his own style”) in doing things

When asked about the purpose, the immature does not offer a clear answer: not knowing what she wants is the norm and usually she is heavily influenced either by others views or by the current context

When being exposed to new knowledge, the immature acts judgmental (“I knew that”) or is in denial (“this is not possible”) and – therefore he does not apply immediately what he learned: delays implementation saying to himself things like “I kneed to study more”, or “It’s too easy – is unfair to do this”

When taken off the tracks - like being in a new, unexpected situation, the immature person either completely shuts down (basically blocks himself of taking any action) or runs wild (taking totally irrational decisions – acting like a chicken without head)

When doing things, the immature is interested in looking smart, rather being efficient and trying to learn – sacrificing the long terms gains for the short term benefits of being perceived as “the expert”

When looking at the bigger scheme of things, the immature has a single perspective – his own: and the clear sign of this is that he goes with the first solution which came to his mind

When challenged, the immature does not feel comfortable in her own skin: she does not ask for help, until is usually too late: and the main reason for this is that she does not create healthy boundries

When making an error, an immature not only blames others, but he is not learning anything form his mistakes, so these occur over and over and over: even more, he does not help others to avoid his own mistakes, to avoid going through the same pain

When others share, the immature will not as she may fear that others will laugh at her, or that the information she possess is not too interesting or that the others may take advantage of gaining “powerful insights (which are usually common sense) and therefore she will loose the “expert” status

Thanks for reading my post, and Please feel free to add your own perspectives on this generous topic.

In his excellent book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” Stephen R. Covey unveils a principle which he calls “Begin with the End in Mind” which virtually applies to any areas of life.

To be successful, in every profession, one should pay attention to the above law. Think about marketing: a marketer begins his work what the client needs, wants, fears and frustrations – and that, and only after that, he proceeds with the rest of the work. For a doctor, the main focus is restoring patient’s health, and with this in mind, she starts to investigate what is wrong and what is the cure. The captain of the submarine, knows his destination first.

Actually this advice is just common sense – and therefore fundamental: after all, did you know any farmer to plant random seeds, and then reap whatever grows up? But now, please think of an online project. With which end should we begin? Is the project’s end – like delivering the website to a product manager or webmaster? Or is it a totally different end, in which everyone happily lives ever after?

Confused? But seriously, what is the online project’s end, to know where should we begin? Obviously, the first answer which comes probably in every junior project manager’s mind is the main project deliverable – the website. And while this is true – as no one can call himself a project manager unless he delivers – it may not represent the whole truth.

Let’s take a look at another habit of highly effective people: “Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood”.

By adding this layer in clarifying project’s scope, your chances – as project manager – of reaching the final destination increase, as it adds the human factor to the entire equation. Satisfying the project stakeholders – especially the post launch ones – is an absolute must for project’s success.

Unless what needs to be delivered is thoroughly extracted from the minds of the stakeholders and understood by the entire team, the project is just like a pizza delivery without a menu. From my experience, the best online projects start by defining who is going to use it (the end-users as well as the web manager), by defining the high level performance metrics of the website-to-be (which should be part of project development), and – just after that – how the site should look.

Bottom line: the first and probably the most important thing to look in a project is getting right, as quick as possible, what needs to be done and what not – by clarifying, articulating and testing what the project stakeholders expect to have after the project is over.

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A good friend of mine and one of the Internet gurus in Romania – Orlando – asked me the other day why would I even consider going to a blogging workshop. Afterwards, what else could someone with my experience – more than 12 years in the web space, having access to the web analytics data of major websites like Yahoo, MSN and insights from Nielsen Online – would learn from a blogging workshop?

Oh, but he is right… what was on my mind? This was my very first thought, probably fueled by the fact that Orlando has a very successful blog in Romania, which has been published without any training whatsoever. And guess what, I have already learned a great deal on blogging from Orlando.  But then, the reasoning voice came back and secretly whispered, somewhere in the back of mind: “Hey, listen Bogdan… how many times have you ever been successful in doing things without having a clue, without any plan, and without any clear end in mind?”

So here I am, today, taking part of a blogging workshop. Being again vulnerable and ready to fail, in order to learn. To learn how to blog. How to better communicate with individuals who might be interested in knowing the lessons which I have learnt from my life, without going through the same pain and efforts I had to endure to know all this stuff which now wants to break free. How to share and refine my areas of expertise: digital, project management, personal development, web analytics, irrational behaviour.

Here is the deal: if I share only a quarter of my perspectives on what I am good at, I believe this lesson is worth taking, no matter the pain. Yes, I know I will make some blogging mistakes – but through consistent learning I can be better and help others become better.

I am not alone here: Dragos has besides me another apprentice: Valerica. Let’s enjoy the journey!