“Organizations are horrible at subtraction.” Someone said that to me a couple months ago, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. It is so true. Organizations are so much better at adding things than they are at taking things away. We’re better at setting goals and talking about what we’re going to do than we are at talking about what we’re NOT going to do. It's easier to add process than it is to ask why we're still doing that thing that worked great two years ago but mostly isn't relevant anymore. We’re better at adding meetings than we are at removing them.
While many of the meetings on my calendar feel unavoidable, I have found great power - and free brain space - in jettisoning out of recurring status calls once my input is no longer needed. The invitee list doesn't obligate me to be there forever and keeping in mind an objective to, at each meeting, ensure that I actually need to be at the next one, has been very helpful in keeping the accrual of standing meetings in check.
What I find fascinating is how good we are at describing what is out-of-scope for a given sprint and being vigilant about scope creep on client projects but have such a hard time applying those principles to the project of the company.
I see so much organizational debt as companies grow, and sometimes this "debt" is measure in the amount of unnecessary processes that the company has outgrown
Addition vs Subtraction
While many of the meetings on my calendar feel unavoidable, I have found great power - and free brain space - in jettisoning out of recurring status calls once my input is no longer needed. The invitee list doesn't obligate me to be there forever and keeping in mind an objective to, at each meeting, ensure that I actually need to be at the next one, has been very helpful in keeping the accrual of standing meetings in check.
What I find fascinating is how good we are at describing what is out-of-scope for a given sprint and being vigilant about scope creep on client projects but have such a hard time applying those principles to the project of the company.
I see so much organizational debt as companies grow, and sometimes this "debt" is measure in the amount of unnecessary processes that the company has outgrown