Stop Doing the Wrong Things Right with The Five Whys
“There is nothing worse than doing the wrong things right” - Peter Drucker.
In recent times when Eric Ries met with senior executives at Toyota, famed for their lean production system, they echoed Drucker’s words and said “we’ve got a system for efficiently producing widgets but we don’t have a system for deciding what to produce in the first place”.
Yes, whatever decision you are making in life it’s important to determine whether you are focusing on the right decision in the first place.
Solving with the Wrong Problem
Hacking for Defense is a partnership between Stanford University and the US Department of Defense and according to the website, is a ‘is a battle-tested problem-solving methodology that runs at Silicon Valley speed’.
Eight student teams were given eight problem statements to work with. The teams spoke to over 800 beneficiaries, requirements writers, program managers, warfighters, legal, security and customers. Seven out of the eight teams realized that the problem as given by the sponsor really wasn’t the problem at all.
Their sponsors agreed.This is an all too common occurrence we see in our work with corporates and it’s also a big part of the reason why more than 80% of new ideas fail at large companies and 95% of startups fail, period.
Focusing on the right problem to solve in the context of innovation is a delicate science that I’ve covered in a number of previous blog posts (including here, here and here).
But on a personal decision making level, how might you gain some assurance that you’re tackling the right problem?
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The WorkFlow podcast is hosted by Steve Glaveski with a mission to help you unlock your potential to do more great work in far less time, whether you're working as part of a team or flying solo, and to set you up for a richer life.
To help you avoid stepping into these all too common pitfalls, we’ve reflected on our five years as an organization working on corporate innovation programs across the globe, and have prepared 100 DOs and DON’Ts.
