Hurry, or Something Smells Here

When I think about various problems organizations face, especially recurring ones, the most characteristic symptom that something is wrong is hurry.

• “We can’t organize a 3-hour workshop because our managers are too busy.”
• “We must do a one-day training because we can’t get managers for two full days.”
• “I can’t attend the Sprint Review because I have a few topics to finish.”
• “I’ll send you a meeting summary (in writing) because I don’t have time to explain it to you.”
• “This absolutely needs to be done now because the board needs it tomorrow.”
• “We don’t have time to refine the user stories because we have so many of our own tasks.”

Do you recognize this?

I’m increasingly convinced that if you hear people say they don’t have time, or someone important to their project doesn’t have time, it’s a serious problem. This is a problem no technique, framework, toolset, training*, workshop, or even an earthquake will solve. Nothing!
*Unless it’s assertiveness training.

Why is time needed?

I see at least a few reasons:

1. Solving serious problems (organizational, procedural, or project-related) requires reflection, which in turn requires stopping, which requires time.

2. Good communication takes time – Why train for communication if everyone in the company is perpetually busy? Yes! Good communication requires time, time for:

   • Explaining problematic situations,
   • Discovering there’s a problem and understanding what it is,
   • Synchronizing the knowledge of all involved parties,
   • Understanding others’ goals and intentions.
     Without this, nothing works!

3. Planning takes time, especially for clearly defining and determining the criteria for achieving goals.

4. Prioritization takes time – selecting what’s not important. This is the key point: if you don’t have time, you do everything indiscriminately, so you don’t have time. Rejecting tasks, saying “no”*, selection, and figuring out where the 20% from the Pareto Principle is, requires a lot of time. But thanks to this, you do 20% of the work instead of 95%.

*That’s what assertiveness training is for.

If you don’t have time, there’s a very high probability that you’re wasting the most valuable resource in your life, which is time (besides life itself, of course ;-)).