The Development of Your Own System - A Step-by-Step Guideline

Does any of those questions sound familiar to you ?

• You know perceive what it going to happen yet you cannot describe it ?
• You would like to avoid obvious mistakes yet you cannot get through to the decision makers ?
• You think very complex and have difficulties to express yourself in a comprehensive, precise manner?
• You would like to cry because of anger because you see the negative stuff to happen yet cannot prevent the harm ?

If so, this can be very frustrating. However, instead of giving up or looking for a known system in an unknown situation, which is supposed to eliminate your current obstacles, it is always useful to first elaborate the internal needs & approaches.

But HOW ? Here are your

Guiding Principles

Leadership Team

Involve those, who are directly impacted, early on. You may look for the leader first; however, select a skillful representative later on. This will be important in order to gather a birds-eye view. Although sometimes our own perception may be challenged in due course, this helps you to choose the best way, instead of your way.

Look for an 'authentic dissenter' as a leader rather than a “conformity thinker” to steer the process to an end. This also helps to manage the loudest voice issue in the room.

Stakeholders

Get those into the loop who may have to approve or finance your ideas at some stage. This way, you can expect support, contribution, questions, mutual understanding, and (certainly) also detect possible show stopper. It’s all fine as it is supposed to use any resources always properly (instead of following an idea that never becomes true which is demotivating for anyone involved).

Scope

» Develop unique ideas and write them down. Apparently this helps us to obtain in-depth insight by writing thoughts down and thinking them through.

What may sound easy - oftentimes isn’t. Sometimes they are like a flickering candle rather than a flash light. Try to catch them. Especially smart people tend to apply weird psychological curiosities such as over- intellectualizing and making things too complicated.

Nail it down so that everyone can understand and follow you. As a former boss of mine said “Aunt Emma needs to understand you”.

Set for high standards rather than perfection. Things do inevitably change as we learn and progress.

Now, it’s not enough to just list what we’d like to accomplish, we need to tie it to a desired outcome.

Endpoints

These resemble your goals or resolutions.

Keep them always in mind from scratch to be able to keep focus and reach target. » List and » prioritize them by » brainstorming and take a maximum of 5 into final account. Apparently this is the amount human beings can deal with in parallel.

More often than not there seems to be a tendency to gather everything instead of focusing on what one truly needs. Maybe because of a lack of clarity, maybe because of a common believe that additional data can be used for something else… which actually almost never happens and hinders urgently needed progress (as well as affordability).

If you are clear what you want to achieve, you will almost intuitively know what will serve for your purpose. Without endpoints we get lost in too many information which impacts our ability to move on.

Notes

Consider common needs so anyone can easily find any information at one place. This prevents a lot of enquiries and disturbances and makes it easy due course to educate your peers to look first, before interrupting you (something will always be missing). People will get used to it, soon, if you direct them - instead of telling them each time.

Timelines

These shouldn’t be a compilation of ambitious wishes yet a reasonable and challenging assumption. Consult your concerned peers and count backwards before you craft them, than break them down into timeslots of 90 days each to be worked through, one after the other. Meanwhile, » Rules of thumb can help you suggesting the big picture. That way you keep control of the true needs and resources availability, plus consider all changes that do come up along the way.

Finally

I know that we often think not to have the time to do this and this system definitely requires some time and reflection. Yet don’t beat yourself up if they don’t come to you right away: Bottom-line it helps you avoid many » parallel approaches, thus safe up to 30 % of your resources.

Control will be essential because as you progress, you will inevitably be confronted with larger and more complex decisions. Hence, check into it with others frequently. Everything has its dynamics and I think it’s healthy to cull them, modify them, and be honest with ourselves if they’ may not be working out.

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