How do you get to market faster than the competition? How do you become more efficient without violating the laws of physics? How do you save time, money and frustration?
It all comes down to decision hygiene:
1. Make decisions faster. You rarely need more time. Mostly, you must merely choose to decide. The simple test: is more time needed to gather useful data, or is more time merely a way to postpone the decision?
2. Make decisions in the right order. Do the decisions with the most expensive and time-consuming dependencies first. Don’t ask the boss to approve the photos once you’re in galleys, and don’t start driving until you’ve looked at the map.
3. Only make decisions once, unless new data gives you a profitable reason to change your mind.
4. Don’t ask everyone to help you decide. Ask the people who will either improve the decision or who have input that will make it more likely you won’t get vetoed later.
5. Triage decisions. Some decisions don’t matter. Some decisions are so unimportant that they are trumped by speed. And a few decisions are worth focusing on.
You don’t need a consultant or a lot of money to radically improve your speed to market. You will speed up once you’re comfortable going faster.