The Brief Creative Newsletter
October 12, 2024
005 - Moving Fast Doesn't Mean Disorganized
The old age of "move fast and break things" doesn't mean without direction or structure. You can have both!
Write that down...
Notion affiliate links coming your way
Between client work, Linkedin posts, and this newsletter there's a fair amount of writing I'm doing these days. For years I was a Google Docs diehard, and don't get me wrong there's still a time and place for it, but for the last 18 months I've been deep into Notion.
This is a Kanban board I created to plan, draft, and organize my writing.
Docs, sheets, databases, Kanban boards, AI, it's all in there and while I fully admit that it could be a bit complex at times, I love the flexibility Notion offers that you just can't get in Docs.
The Spark
This is stuff I'm enjoying out in the world (it's probably not B2B).
Anybody else excited about Bake Off being back? When I think about the shows I watch they're full of drama, violence, anger, moodiness. And while I do watch a fair amount of comedy, rarely does any of it make you feel particularly good. That's where The Great British Bake Off comes in.
Yes, it's a competition and yes, it's high stakes (for a baking show), but the contestants help each other, they're polite, they're thoughtful, they're creative, and super process oriented! It feels like the one hour a week where the rest of the drama kinda goes away. So for the next few weeks I'm gonna be living that Bake Off life (Team Nelly, let's go!). Now can someone please explain to me why Paul feels the need to just destroy any Showstopper he comes in contact with?
The Deep Thoughts
This is what I'm thinking about.
Anybody a fan of pre-reads? I know I am. It's not that I can't think on my feet but I prefer to have time to think (and rethink) deeply about what's being shared. So whenever I need to present a strategy, memo, or deck, I like to send it ahead of time—which is where this convo started.
Move fast and break things, right?
When I first heard the saying in my early 20s I loved it. It was the perfect excuse to do whatever, whenever, however. It resulted in lots of failures but some big successes. When I look back on that time now I have plenty of great memories but I also see all the inefficiency, the lack of focus, and the inability (maybe even lack of desire) to make decisions.
Most startups are basically me in my 20s. They're just trying to figure it out. There's nothing wrong with that (I literally wrote about the benefit of experimentation a few weeks ago) but if it's aimless then you're doing it wrong. Which brings us back to the screenshot above.
One of the recommendations I made to this client was implementing something called the DACI Framework. Without going into too much detail, the idea is that you clarify roles and responsibilities within a project to make things like communication and feedback more straightforward. The response to that rec caught me off guard:
"At [redacted] we move extremely fast so I am not sure. This might be overly ambitious."
My response:
"With all due respect, that's an excuse..."
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not in the business of calling out the people I work with but the "move fast" adage makes it feel like you can only move fast if you're running aimlessly and that couldn't be further from the truth.
Fast and Furious Thoughtful
It is possible to have it both ways. The most literal example I can think of is an F1 racing team. These cars are literally flying down the track at 200mph and the goal is to go even faster—even if only to gain hundredths of a second.
The Red Bull Team sets the world record for fastest pit stop. Formula 1//Twitter
Some might think that the driver sits down, puts on their helmet, and pushes down on the accelerator as hard as they can but they don't stop to consider the engineering team, the designers, the pit crew, the practice laps, the hard and soft tyres (I see you Pirelli). It takes hundreds of people for a team to even show up at an F1 Grand Prix, let alone to win one. If only you could push a pedal and win...
It's no different at your company. If you want to commit random acts of marketing and hope something wins you're more than welcome to but how will you know what won? How will you repeat that victory? How will you build on that momentum? This is where process comes in.
Process Helps You Move Faster
Your process answers the important questions about a project or campaign that makes it easier to communicate, share, and iterate. Even if you're starting from scratch, these next steps shouldn't take you longer than 15 minutes. If they do, that might mean you're moving too fast and are in danger of going off track.
So let's go old school on this one... open up a new doc and answer these questions.
Who?
Who's on the project and what is their role? This helps make sure that the right people are in the loop, that they know what's expected of them, they get updates, meeting invites, and the like. Make sure this list includes the execs too (don't worry about their inboxes or schedules). There's nothing more disruptive to a project then a stakeholder getting added late in the game and forcing the work to go backwards. I love DACI for this!
What?
What are you trying to achieve? This doesn't need to be a manifesto but everyone should be on the same page around what the goals of the project are. Is it leads? Are you looking to build awareness? Are you changing the CTA color? However big or small it is, write it down so everyone knows what's going on.
Where?
Where are you running this project? Be specific. Map out the user journey and make it clear where your focus lies. It doesn't need to be as specific as the one below (and a piece of paper is fine), but think about the goals from "What?" and how you'll achieve them.
When
When is the project running? Be specific here too. If there are multiple phases, note those as well. The idea is to create a plan and while that can shift based on variables, having a general sense of "we're going to know the answer in about 6 weeks" is helpful. It'll help keep those execs at bay too!
How
How are you going to execute? This is part 2 of the "What?" above. That's the vision, this is the part where you do the work. How are you going to achieve the plan that you set out? This is another one that might shift but at least map out what those first steps are.
Single Source of Truth
That wasn't so bad, right? Now in a single place you have listed who the players (and non-players) are, you know what success looks like, you know where and when you're doing the work, and most importantly you know how you're going to do it. If someone has questions, send them the doc (or better yet turn the doc into a project with tasks and subtasks).
For those wondering, this is actually the start of what we in "the biz" call a brief and it's how you make sure everyone is aligned not just on responsibilities, and goals, but also scope which will eliminate extra questions, confusion, and scope creep. All of which will allow you to go faster. It's a cliche, but sometimes you really do need to go slow to go fast (and it's really not that slow, I promise you).
