5 Ways to Kill Analysis Paralysis



Posted: Monday, October 27, 2008

by JJ Kennedy
Evil Genius Interactive

If your goal is to increase productivity and promote a mindset of action, killing analysis paralysis is your ideal first step. With so much access to information, the quality of which is dubious at best, it is no doubt that entrepreneurs are having a tough time deciding on a course of action.

Help is on the way

Below are a list of 5 tricks to help you and your company break free of the clutches of analysis paralysis. How do I know these work? These are the same steps I follow when I am stuck and need to break free.

Tip 1: Set Constraints that focus on Action not Research

Paralysis creeps in when there are not tight limitations on exactly what the boundaries are. You need to set constraints for 3 key areas before starting the project:

When defining these restraints, allocate more time to action phases of the project than research.

SET THIS GOAL: Estimate the time, money, and resources required for the research phase of your project. Then cut it in half. That is your goal. Make due with what you have. No exceptions. No whining.

Tip 2: Define success after 2 or more phases, not the first.

Most of us have a natural inclination to want to make things as perfect as possible before showing it to others. While in the old world, this makes sense, these days it is actually a stronger case to screw up your first time around and then make it better. In fact, that's the exact strategy Microsoft uses to rule the world.

New Process: prototype, launch, gather feedback, relaunch, determine success

SET THIS GOAL: Estimate your deadlines and metrics for success for just one launch. Then break it into 2 mini-launches. The first launch gets 60% of the time and resources, the second gets 40%.

Example: Original deadline 10 months.

New deadline: Phase 1 6 months (build and launch)

Phase 2 4 months (collect feedback, modify build, relaunch)

This sounds kind of confusing but the concept is simple. You will now be doing 2 mini launches as opposed to 1 big launch. This forces you to make due with what you have for the first launch. Because you already have most of the process down, collecting feedback and making modifications to the original will not take nearly as long as the first time. The end result: A much better product in the same amount of time.

Tip 3: Assigning Failure is OK too. Just do it differently.

In my opinion, what denotes a failure is not doing something wrong. A failure is not doing anything differently AFTER doing something wrong. All projects worth undertaking need to contain an After Action Report (as a critical process step. If you cannot document where things went wrong and then act upon that information, then you have failed.

SET THIS GOAL: Keep a detailed project plan and meeting notes while you are in the development phase. After the first launch, use these notes to help create the After Action Plan. Keep an eye out for times when you were forced to make a tough choice and jot down the options you considered. This will often be your first step in improving in the next phase

Tip 4: Meet the minimum requirements- nothing more

This may sound harsh, but the days of building the "best I possibly can" are over. Set specific requirements required and aim for them. Table any possible improvements, additions, or subtractions until a later day. File them away and revisit when you are in the modify stage after the first launch. Consultants and developers often call this phenomenon "scope-creep." It is so important in their world that you will see it specifically called out in almost every contract.

SET THIS GOAL: Table ALL ideas in the development process that do not meet the agreed on original requirements. Keep a repository of all ideas that come up, but don't even look at them until after the first product launches.

Tip 5: Choices Suck Take the silver spoon out of your mouth

Everybody wants the freedom of choice for every alternative. It's empowering. It's liberating. The problem is that choosing from multiple options:

The perfect analogy is when many of us were kids (especially those of us growing up poor) our favorite toy was the giant empty refrigerator or dryer box. We would deck it out with crayons and paper plates to make it into a spaceship or a racecar or a fort. Why did we do it? Because we really didn't have anything else to do. We were bored. We took that one option and ran with it.

Kids today are just as bored, but now they have a tv, computer, ps3, xbox, the internet, cell phone, and 6 million other gadgets. By our standards they have no right NOT to be entertained. But they are. Why? Because they can't choose from all the alternatives.

SET THIS GOAL: At every bottleneck, limit your choices to 3 things. No more. Create a solution using only those options. If the first rev. is not the greatest, don't despair, you will get to choose 3 more then next time around if you are following the previous tips. But this time around they will be much more targeted options.

Evil Genius TV: Marketing, Humor, and Observations - from a Fancy Dude.

 
JJ Kennedy is founder and CEO of Evil Genius Interactive and Evil Genius TV. He holds an MBA and is the former VP of Internet Marketing and eCommerce at Pitney Bowes, a Fortune 500 company with over $7 Billion in yearly sales.  

Prior to starting EGI, JJ was VP of Marketing and a Principal of the investment division of Action Real Estate and one of the most successful producers in Gainesville history with over $35 Million in single year sales. 

Also See: http://www.evilgeniusinteractive.com

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Anonymous 3 years 31 days ago.
Nice Post. Thank you.
 
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