What Slows Us Down

Being involved in several projects and seeing the bigger picture inside the organization is something to be thankful for. Most of the time, people who are immersed in different scenarios face challenges that are also beyond their control. These challenges make it difficult for an individual to progress and be able to accomplish tasks assigned to him/her.

While most tasks will greatly involve one’s talents and abilities, many are still dependent on the decisions of other people in an organization or the circumstances faced daily by a particular employee.

In trouble-shooting dead-locks and reasons for slow execution, I enumerated a number of reasons on what seems to slow things down:

Lack of Direction/Too Much Direction

Anybody without direction would probably get lost at a certain point, for a project to be successful, a CLEAR and PRECISE direction is needed from the start. On the same note, too much direction will only confuse people, making it harder to move and proceed.

VIP’s

Very Irritating People who wants to be Very Important People – these are people who cannot compromise, they always have their own schedules and expect other people to always adjust to their convenience. These people slow down action items and communication patches needed to run a certain project.

Lack of Exposure and Experience

Not all projects are easily understood. Some projects are dependent on experiences of the Head and also of the subordinates. If members of the team are not exposed on the concept of a particular project or they havent even experience things in real life, there would also be challenges in effective and fast execution.

Wrong pieces used

Just like in the game of Chess, the player (Leader) should know what pieces to move and when to use them. When doing projects, team selection is important to assess, there are certain people who might not fit a particular project and there are those that would perfectly blend in

Long and Useless Meetings

In every project, meetings are required in order to plan and do checking. However, meetings consume time, time is essential to project execution and so taking time and putting them to proper use is very important. Long meetings, meetings about personal grievances, meetings on complaints to contractors and suppliers, will just make things worst. Meetings about SOLUTIONS, PROGRESS, AND POSITIVE REINFORCEMENTS are just the meetings needed. Keypoint: Conduct meetings only if things to be discussed cannot be done over email, personal phone calls, or a group decision is inevitably needed to be solicited.

Indecision

One of the biggest challenge when you join a project is the ability of your Head to decide. Decisions are needed to be made in accordance with the grand plan. When a Head fails to decide logically and on the right time, delays are sure to happen.

Shame and Blame Game

During crunch time, coaches (sports) say things that challenge the team to fight till the end of the game, to never give up and strategize. When doing projects and you reach crunch time, throwing in the blames on people will only reap shame, shame will demoralize people and demoralized people will eventually give poor outputs. When we deal with people, no matter how professional they are, we should always consider the human factor. This is the hard drive, this is where people get the urge to push and do more. Blaming people and shaming them in front of others will not do any good, but will definitely do much damage and furthermore slow things down.

Essentially, the organization should be designed as an institution run by professionals. Able to withstand all challenges and meet the goals of each projects both in Micro and Macro level. But many organizations still need to focus on the items that I have enumerated above. These items, when dealt with accordingly, can collectively be a good key in execution’s speed and the accuracy of the results.