Insights

Fast Enough

by Chance Smith

Companies battle the balance of complacency and burnout. Whether you’re firing thousands or hiring to scale the company, the team is pressed to make considerable progress toward the business goals. We’re wondering, are we going fast enough?

At times we ask ourselves this too. We have goals in mind, and we don’t want stagnant results.

So, let’s figure out if we’re going fast enough.

Who would read this?

You’re asking…

  • Are we overwhelmed or underwhelmed?
  • are we stagnant, complacent, or just tired?
  • you’re wondering if the team will ever finish the project. You don’t see any end in sight.
  • Are we going fast enough?

Are we going fast enough?

Let’s discuss three ways to determine if you’re going at the right speed.

1. Measure

Meet with your team leads and ask how progress will meet deadlines. That doesn’t mean we’re driving hard to meet every deadline to a T, but we want to get better at estimating and making trade-offs where possible.

This vibe check is getting a temperature reading from your team and letting them know their progress is important.

2. Set a personals record

Set a goal, a stretch goal. Try a fast pace, a significant burden of work for a short period. Making a hard sprint is a stress test. Aim for a personal record to stretch yourself.

Hackathons and hard deadlines are great for pushing you to your limits.

When you’re stressed, then you figure out what works and what is worth sacrificing. You may not need full mocks or BEM classes to get immediate results.

When you’re pressed, you’ll learn, and you’ll grow.

3. Learn and Burn

Use the slow times to try something small and new. Try a rapid prototype, from last week’s post. You can try something small, a bite-size trial to either learn or responsibly fail.

If you fail, it’s okay. You can burn this little experiment to the ground. Build, try, and move on.

The point is

Get feedback from your team. Try something challenging. Experiment with something small.

If you do one or all three of these, you’ll have more information to make better decisions. You’ll then know what the right pace is for you and your team.