The messy, uncertain time at the start of a new project can be a swamp – or a time of powerful innovation. Here’s how to take advantage of a project’s fuzzy front end.
Missing the Mark at BioGenesis
Brigette Brooks, director of operations at custom drug development company BioGenesis, has a new headache. Her team just finished a project that was supposed to fix expensive inventory management problems – and the results are dismal. Brigette now sees that things started to go wrong at the beginning for the project – the “fuzzy front end” – when the team jumped quickly to solution space, rushing right past the “why” questions.
Avoid the Swamp
Seeds of failure often are sown early, during a project’s fuzzy front end. This time can be a swamp of inertia and confusion, or full of innovation and creativity. Here are three ways you can avoid the swamp.
Gather an extended community. These are the people who care most about the new project and what it will create. Early in the project, the project’s community is probably more fragmented and larger than you imagine. Gather them and make them an active part of defining the project. Weave their diverse perspectives into a strong shared understanding of the specific outcomes the project should produce.
Embrace uncertainty. Pushing to get to certainty too quickly encourages the same old ways of thinking. Instead, ask many open-ended questions to encourage new ways of looking at the problem you want to solve. Focus on stating the problem clearly and broadly. Avoid premature emphasis on “how to.” That can come later, after the problem statement is well-formed.
Work backward. Don’t make the current state – the way things are done now – the starting point for working out the project’s objectives. That creates cognitive bias favoring the status quo. Instead encourage fresh thinking by asking what the future should look like, then work backwards.
Why It Works
A thoughtful fuzzy front end helps the project community define the right target and rally around it. It also stimulates them to think of new approaches to reach that target, creating protected space for creativity and innovation at the time when they can make the most difference. The next time you start a new project, take advantage of this powerful time.
There’s a lot more to say about navigating the fuzzy front end. Download a longer article here – and I’d love to hear about your experiences with innovation, projects, and the fuzzy front end.