Done ISN'T Better Than Good

Back when I worked in Corporate World, if things were going badly or efforts were failing, a group would form in someone’s office. Everyone would be stressed because something wasn’t working and a deadline was inevitably looming.?

I (as Type A Virgo) would say, “We need to figure out (a) what’s wrong and (b) how we got here so (c) we move forward and (d) not keep making the same mistake over and over.” And everyone around me would say, “No, we just have to get this done. We can come back and figure it out later.” We’d argue the point and eventually just have to move on. And we knew it might end badly, but it was DONE.

Yes, I wanted to get this done as well. But I wanted it to be good; I wanted it to be right. If I’m honest, I wanted it to be perfect. “Done is better than good” didn’t sit well with me. But I’m realistic enough to know that we had to move on. It had to get done at some point. The magazine had to go to press. The grades had to be submitted. The presentation had to be given. The commercial had to get broadcast.

The truth is, however that after the fact, we rarely went back to go through those ABCs. So the mistake would be repeated ad infinitum. In our race to get done, we didn’t get better.

The problem with a “get this done” (GTD) brand of thinking is that you’re never going to identify the source of the mistake(s). The “do it now, figure it out later” folks are always destined to err in haste and repeat at leisure.? Instead of taking the time in the moment to stop, step back, analyze the problem and make a correction, you’ll continue to waste time, money and effort either redoing the project or explaining to your boss why it didn’t work or isn’t finished.

The cost of GTD thinking is real. Even seemingly benign problems can have a huge impact. Data from the Product Management Institute found that “12% of the budget for projects, on average, was wasted due to poor management, counterproductive behaviors, and bad decision-making.”

Bad decision-making comes when you decide to just keep going and “we’ll figure it out later.” That’s almost as bad a philosophy as “but that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

One way to avoid the time (and related resources) wasted is to incorporate an evaluation step in every project. If you’re a student or practitioner of public relations, you know that most of the formulas related to practice end in “E” for evaluation. There’s no secret to evaluation. It’s the all-important step that allows you to survey your results, look at your objectives, identify any counterproductive steps and decide what to do better (or differently) the next time. Regardless of your discipline or industry, you need to make this part of your project plan. Tell yourself, “It’s not done until it’s evaluated.” ??

Build the time to evaluate, and you’ll have more time – and money – to spend on future projects, rather than redoing the old ones or explaining to your boss why it didn’t work or isn’t finished

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