Crazy Ideas

I’ve become a little bored with our blog. We have some interesting people who actually blog some interesting stuff on their own sites. By interesting I mean stuff that attract a loyal audience who hit the blog regularly just to see what stuff has been posted because some of it is really funny or very interesting stuff. So I’m starting to post stuff that I find interesting even if it has nothing to do with our company!

Right now I’ve been thinking about “Crazy Ideas” because we are a startup and more often than not we throw crazy ideas up in a search for how to finally get that launch that will take us from a specialty niche company to a software company that has a line of people waiting for installations.

I’m going to copy and paste some interesting “Crazy Ideas” from

Crazy ideas I’m half tempted to try

with my observations

Rating the meeting organizer: We all spend way too much time in meetings, and if you’re like me, you have to endure a lot of pointless, poorly organized, and poorly run meetings. What if your organization provided an incentive for meeting organizers to prepare in advance and keep the meeting focused? The participants could rate the organizer at the end of each meeting, and the information could be used during reviews. While I like the thrust of this idea, I’ve never implemented it because I worry about drowning in administrative detail, given the number of meetings we have around here.
I simply hate meetings. If it were up to me, no meeting would ever be held unless someone could provide a specific agenda with proposed answers to discuss. The idea that people actually brainstorm solutions in “meetings” has not been my experience. Better to brainstorm over coffee, tea, beer, wine or some other social lubricant.

The “no-chairs” meeting room: You’ve probably all heard about this one. Evidently, some companies cut down on meeting times by removing all the chairs from their meeting rooms. You want to call a meeting? No problem—but you’ll have to stand up. It should cut down on the number and length of meetings. I’ve never tried it, for two reasons. First, you’d need to raise the height of your conference tables. Second, I’d feel more than a little ridiculous in a roomful of my peers, standing around a conference table. (By the way, I’d love to hear from anyone who’s actually tried this. Post a comment to this article, and tell us how it worked.)
Now this is really a dumb idea. To call it crazy would dignify it with the idea that some kind of thought went into it!

Adding 20 percent to any project timeline: This idea is pretty simple: Just add 20 percent in your head to any timeline you’re given. Not counting on a date that you’re not going to hit could save a lot of heartache down the road. In effect, you’re saying: I know we’re going to run into problems. I don’t know where or when we’ll hit them, but it will happen.
I’m not sure 20% is even the right number. In my 36 years in business, I can count on one hand the number of projects I’ve seen both come in on time and deliver meaningful results. The fact is that it doesn’t help to add anything to the timeline, the better approach, IMO, is to have bi-weekly project updates and push the due date out based upon those updates.

Subtracting 20 percent from any project timeline: This is the flipside of the previous idea. Rather than padding a proposed timeline, this idea assumes that your project manager has already padded the timeline. It’s saying: If we really wanted to crank this out, I’m sure we could do it a lot faster.
Another really a dumb idea. See my comments about adding 20%

Rotating jobs among managers: In the armed forces, and in some large corporations like General Electric, managers rotate in and out of assignments on a regular basis—often in stints of one or two years. In a time when payroll growth has slowed (to put it mildly) and managers see fewer immediate opportunities for advancement, rotating managerial assignments could be a good way to offer career development. It could also help keep teams fresh by providing new insights and breaking down the inertia that sets in whenever a group stays the same too long. I’ve been reluctant to try this since some managerial positions seem to require skill sets that not everyone has.
Anyone who has had the pleasure of dealing with the military over a long term contract as the chiefs rotate can tell you how absolutely brilliant this idea is!

The 75 percent counteroffer: If you assume that vendors will attempt to maximize their profit, this idea says that no matter what a vendor proposes, counter by offering to pay 75 percent of the asking price. (This also assumes, of course, that you want to do business with the vendor in question.) Most of us don’t like to haggle. Worse, most of us aren’t very good at it. This idea makes it easier by giving you a quick way to counter.
75% is probably too high!

Go with your gut: This isn’t a crazy idea so much as an observation. As I get older, I find that when I first face a problem or a decision, I have a gut reaction that tells me which way to go. I always fight that instinct; agreeing with the saying, “Decide in haste, repent at leisure.” Therefore, I spend a lot of time thoroughly considering all aspects of the problem. In the end, I often end up exactly where I started. Of course, this makes me feel better about the decision, but it takes a lot of time and effort that could be spent on other things. What if I trusted my instincts more often, and just went with my gut?
The “gut” is just your subconscious mind processing data and coming to a conclusion. As you get older, the meaning of that data becomes clearer to the subconscious mind. So, I agree, as you get older, the “gut” gets better at hitting the right conclusion intuitively. I wouldn’t trust the “gut” of a 15 year old too much

Notes on Performance Management and writing the software behind it

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