Reduce time spent leading nowhere

I had some good feedback on this nugget from my last article so I thought some follow up might be useful as the next article to focus on:

When I found myself asking "so what?" as someone droned on in a meeting about the nature of their project, what they are discovering, how exciting it is, etc -- I realised that if we could have this meeting before the work started - discuss the possibilities of what could be discovered AND decide how it would impact our business path decisions, we could better decide if the work was necessary in the first place. The more I did this, the more I came to realise that people often go down paths without knowing if what they "could" find will ultimately have no impact on business path decisions - therefore these are great opportunities to save time, resources and directly, or indirectly, money.

Obviously their are cases where a followed path is purely to discover new things because you can't even hypothesise what you might discover. Although I would argue this exposes a general weakness in the creativity and innovation level of your team -- you should still create many review points where "so what" can be asked so you don't go to the very end of the path needlessly.

So, how do you operationalize all of this "so what" stuff?

• require that projects are always proposed with the expected outcomes pre-supposed. If it is purely for research, make sure the possible items are at least guessed first so the project stops when an outcome is identified so that you know when to stop. Otherwise the project can have no end (and no limit on cost).
• make sure you discuss how an outcome "might" impact business path decisions -- if it would not have any impact -- STOP then. No need to go down the path if you already know you won't change anything. A bit draconian perhaps, but useful if you have more things to do than time available -- which should always be the case in successful businesses AND unsuccessful businesses trying to become successful.
• document with detail projects. Make sure you have debriefing sessions to review the pros and cons not just of what was learned, but the process you went through to allow the project to be approved -- the budget you allocated to it, etc. The more you learn from your past, the more you create a proper line in the sand leading to your future success. You can't go from today forward and establish a direction -- you need the line behind you as well (not to dwell on, don't stay in the back of the boat as the expression goes).

Anyway -- perhaps you should not have read this as it will not change anything you do -- "so what" you may ask!

Please share your thoughts on this nugget or anything else coming from www.InsideSpin.com.