Write It Down

I have this penchant for writing things down. Everything.  I have what a friend affectionately calls, "FOMS" Disease. FOMS stands for the "Fear Of Missing Something."  For startups (or really any size organization), you need to write things down.

Some things that you should codify are:

• notes on important business meetings - email, cheap CRM software (aka Salesforce), or even an excel spreadsheet

• Take notes after each staff meeting - write down the action items and the key decisions in the meeting;  forward them every week and keep track of your progress.  It is the no dicker sticker for the team.

• Strategic planning sessions need notes and easy-to-follow plans out of them.  One slide should be able to some up your Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Tactics.

• Remark your code and if you don't have time to write specs, at least document UI specs

• Keep a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) scorecard that is circulated to your management team, employees, and Board every week

I love the Bossidy book, Execution.  It was published 6 years ago and I find it extremely pertinent.  It is jam packed with no-nonsense blueprints for running a company.  I imagine Larry walking into a meeting like the dime store detective, Mike Hammer.  Noir-like and hard-nosed getting right to the facts.  He devoted a lot of time in the book about the importance of follow-up after meetings and constant attention to decisions that are made. 

To be honest, I use notepad as my planning tool and I use Excel for planning product launches.  I am what is called "old school."  There are certainly fancier tools that are no doubt more elegeant like 37things and LiquidPlanner.  As your company grows, you will develop management procedures and processes as you scale.  Setting an early culture of execution via deliberate attention to writing down decisions (and sticking with them), is a wonderful way to keep your fast mover advantage as a startup.

Comments

[Sean Murphy]

Writing things down helps you to keep projects on track and avoid revisiting the same discussions and decisions without new information. As you add folks to a project or team it also speeds their getting up to speed. Two suggestions:

1. Save your notes in a private wiki that any of the team and see and edit. We use CentralDesktop but there are many good solutions out there. This allows you to link them easily to other notes and specification or issue lists. It also allows the agenda page for a meeting to be converted to the minutes/notes page during the meeting.

2. When you make a decision write down the time frame and your expected outcomes. This is what Russell Ackoff refers to as a decision record and allows to set an explicit review point. Also, you can forgot why you made the decision or the outcome you were hoping for, this discipline actually helps you to learn faster.

[Bruce P. Henry]

Thanks for the mention of LiquidPlanner Matt!

We too have FOMS Disease. We've been known to use our cell phones to take pictures of whiteboard discussions and then attach those photos to the tasks or projects in LiquidPlanner. Just in case... you know... we missed something.

Execution has been one of my favorite books ever since I read it about 3 or 4 years ago. The thing that always resonated for me in the book was the focus on doing the simple (but not easy) things that build a culture of execution.

[Joel Gendelman]

Matt - Execution is a great book! You've spurred me to pull out of the bookcase...