The Underappreciated Competitive Advantage: The Ability to Get Things Done
The more time I spend observing men and women who are high achievers, the more I realize that while many have visionary leadership, keen intellect, and a passion for change, perhaps their most unappreciated yet impressive skill is their ability to get things done. This sounds outrageously oversimplified. To many people “getting things done” seems like a commodity skill set—sure there are tricks but at the end of the day all that matters is that people check off their task list. From my study of a few outrageously impressive people, efficient task management is one of their key competitive advantages. So if you are serious about making a difference in whatever sphere you work, spend a few hours exploring project management. You’ll find that productive management results in more successful projects (e.g. that new non-profit finally gets off the ground), more free time (for your friends or family), more sleep (yielding more focus), and/or more time to explore your passions (to figure out how you actually want to spend your time). Below are a few resources I have found helpful in my journey. Please send your tricks and tips my way!
Knowledge:
Getting Things Done (buy here): the classic book on the subject. I really believe this book can change your life. Allen has consulted with hundreds of top executives. What he finds is that after these executives implement a trusted system for task/project management, they unleash an inner-creativity. They literally start coming up with all sorts of new ideas for their business or personal interests. Allen argues that since the human mind is so inefficient in determining what to store in its short term “RAM,” once you clear that memory of lots of tasks and reminders (by writing them down in an organized fashion), you free up intellectual computing ability to devote to other processes (including brainstorming). You can find a summary of some of the book’s highlights here.
The Art of Project Management: kudos to my friend Joe Barillari for sending this great piece my way. This piece is a chapter out of a book by the same title by Scott Berkun, a longtime project manager at Microsoft.
The summary points:
- Everything can be represented in an ordered list. Most of the work of project management is correctly prioritizing things and leading the team in carrying them out.
- The three most basic ordered lists are: project goals (vision), list of features, and list of work items. They should always be in sync with each other. Each work item contributes to a feature, and each feature contributes to a goal.
- There is a bright yellow line between priority 1 work and everything else.
- Things happen when you say no. If you can't say no, you effectively have no priorities.
- The PM has to keep the team honest and keep them close to reality.
- Knowing the critical path in engineering and team processes enables efficiency.
- You must be both relentless and savvy to make things happen.