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“directors are allowed to spend years in the development phase of a movie,” noted Ed Catmull, a co-founder of Pixar. There is a cost associated with exploring ideas, writing scripts, storyboarding images, and doing it all over and over again. But “the costs of iterations are relatively low.”28 And all that good work produces a rich, detailed, tested, and proven plan.
How Big Things Get Done
Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner
The most important cure is to **invest in great process**. Whatever you’re making — products, marketing, research, policy, or service — you need to have a clear, complete process for getting it done, from end-to-end. Until you do, you’ll probably be stuck in meeting hell.
Meetings are like smashing something with a hammer because you don’t have any other tools in your shop. Great process is lightweight, efficient, and adaptable. Too much is bad but not enough is worse. You need things like clear planning processes and well organized product development and design process that include all functions. And you need program managers (PgM, DpM, TpM, OMGpM) whose major job is to take care of this stuff. A great program manager can measure their worth in meetings removed.
Too Many Meetings Is Not Your Problem
Judd Antin
Don't worry about outcomes over outputs when your outputs are saddled with dependencies, silos, lack of instrumentation, drag, committees, politics, etc. It is like worrying about having a great lunch when you are completely constipated. Great outcomes take output (in a culture where you follow up on your bets). John Cutler
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