Output is Small Steps
In the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, the author argues to focus on small steps to reach a big goal, instead of focusing on the big goal and getting frustrated by what seems to be slow progress, or intimidated by the sheer size of the end. This reminded me of the good old output / outcome dichotomy.
Outcome (the big end) takes time to achieve. Keeping the eyes on that can lead to losing sight of what’s important: the concrete next step. This step, like all the others, is a small change, and reaching the end goal is a journey of such small changes that will eventually have big consequences. These steps are the various instalments of output we need to generate to eventually deliver the outcome.
Next time you or your team are hit by analysis paralysis, and feel the tendency to slice those user stories in an epic way too big because the smaller ones don’t feel like making progress, take a step back, and err on the side of slicing the story smaller. It’s quicker to achieve, quicker to generate that nice bit of satisfaction when completed. And it will contribute to the epic nonetheless. What’s important is to be confident about getting there.
Tags: work