Random Observation/Comment #550: Time-boxing commitments and projects creates the urgency for reaching milestones of change.
Why this List?
What a feeling it is to reach a big milestone! Milestones keep you honest on timing, but more importantly, give you something to celebrate. Do your happy dance. Done? The next step is crucial: review and learn from your milestone. Notice that this isn’t just a lessons learned of a full project or sprint, this is a retrospect of success. Notice that these do not just apply to career projects, but also with relationships of all types. Here are some questions I ask myself, the team, and the bigger community (bolded the important ones):
- What are our strengths?
- What’s working?
- What’s not working?
- What do we want?
- What do our clients/others want?
- What are we going to get when we get what we want?
- What tweaks do we want to make?
- Who should be involved?
- Should they be involved earlier?
- What’s the next milestone?
- What artifacts can you keep from your milestone?
- What artifacts can become templates?
- How can others learn from these successes?
- What could have gone wrong?
- How do we mitigate these risks going farther?
- What micro-goals can we create to encourage better collaboration?
- Is transparency and communication an issue?
- Operationally, are ideas brought up in a clear way?
- Does the group understand the long term strategy?
- Is your long term strategy still relevant given the results?
- Is there a gap in knowledge for your team that should be learned or shared?
- Do you need to hire a specific skill set to round out the group?
- What was the most difficult part?
- Are there more than one blockers that you need to address for long term?
- What was the most surprising part?
- Who should be recognized from the group?
- Can you present this success at a conference or meeting to recognize the participants?
- Can you summarize this success in an elevator pitch or deck slide for others to use?
- Has your team built a pattern of success?
- Is everyone in the team happy?
~See Lemons Reach Milestones
