Rush!

I recently had a meeting with a load of people that spoke quickly and seemed to be very switched onto the programme and work that needed to happen. I'm not convinced that what was being done was the right thing. I definitely got an idea that they'd slipped into "deliver stuff quickly, now, rush, hurry, oh hang on...that's the wrong thing". They certainly had a big timeline of in-flight stuff that didn't necessarily fit in with the direction that the operations side needed to drive.

The problem with this is simple. We need to re-assess what needs to be done and then it may be the case that we need to cull some in-flight stuff. If we're culling a £1m project that's 1/4 through, we're not wasting £250k but saving £750k overall. We have still spent £250k but that's better than spending the whole £1m on what's now the wrong thing. These are tough choices.

We need to consider how we're going to implement the new model. Perhaps the new model is wrong...we need to test that's right before we implement anything, otherwise cash is wasted. We then need to run a pilot or at least walkthrough using different scenarios, or perhaps run some more complex analysis, or we're just running into the dark.

Location:Manchester, UK