RevOps professionals constantly find themselves involved in demands that have never been developed before. How to predict and give a deadline for these demands, and why shouldn't we stop at “it can't be done in our system”?
Motivation
To bring initial ideas, I based myself on the Project Management course, from Veduca, where the prediction of uncertain projects is made and what motivated me to bring this discussion was chapter 3 of the book Managing Yourself. (The resilience mechanism)
Said:” Building resilience is the ability to do with what is available”
Deep diving
There are 2 types of unknown items, the 1st is when you know a feature that will help you and with that, you can give a deadline for the development of the improvement. The 2nd when you don't know. What has worked in my career is: before giving a deadline, provide a deadline for discovery and then we run into resilience.
Discovering the wheel
Obey the deadline given, try to work during that period, and don't give the discovery verdict beforehand, If you didn't make it on Monday, try another way on Tuesday. If it works on Monday, test it on Tuesday and see if you can implement improvements, look another way, and talk to the stakeholders. Don’t give up at first “It can’t be done in this system.”
Note: sometimes the solution comes in desperation, or in the shower 😂
Routes
A great exercise is to stipulate at least 3 user stories, the operator who knows how to use the system, the operator who records the places he has to press and does not know how to use the system, and the manager. This will motivate you to improve the discovery or to look for another solution.
Whenever you are looking for the round wheel, concentrate. Think about the impacts, the operators, the areas of handoffs, and the objectives.
At the end of the discovery period, set a meeting and give your development deadline.
Interesting exercise @MarcosBarcelos. It seems RevOps folks are quickly becoming the "can't you just do this new thing with this new technology no one knows" folks in our organizations. I like the user stories idea you offer at the end here. Very helpful.
I really liked the quote in the screenshot that you've shared above! You mentioned that it's from a book with the title "Managing Yourself (The resilience mechanism)". Do you maybe have a link to the e-book version? If not, could you share the author of the book? I wasn't able to find it online 🙂
@kvlschaefer thanks for sharing! And thank you for sharing your thoughts with the community @MarcosBarcelos - this is especially helpful for those new to RevOps!
And...I've definitely had the solution pop in mind while in the shower, or on a walk. Sometimes the best thing can be to step away to let your mind take in other things!
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