Last week we talked about the power of shaping up work that matters.
Now, to get us going, let's go through a quick checklist as a follow-up to that conversation.
The first is, have we set one hour a week aside so that people can make pitches and presentations?
We need to pick a time. In our organization, that happens at 1pm on Wednesdays.
Several things happen at 1pm. People come and make their pitch.
I'm going to go through again to remind you what a pitch is involved.
A pitch should only take you about 20 minutes at most to prepare.
If you're spending more time than that putting a pitch together for the team, you're already starting to work on the solution.
So, don't do that. Just get the pitch done very simply.
You may want to practice as a team the first time about doing a pitch together.
The second thing is, remember that some people are finishing their pitches.
In other words, they're finishing their projects and we call those presentations.
So, there are pitches and presentations.
Pitches when you start a project. Presentations when you're presenting that finished project.
So, when we say we've had over 100 projects that have never been an hour late, that's what we're referring to.
At 1pm pacific time, we go and make our pitch.
And then we count the number of deep work sessions it's going to take.
And then say, I will see you in that many weeks time.
So, as an example, let's say on Wednesday I make my pitch.
And I think about it and I think that's going to take three deep work sessions.
And since I'm doing one deep work session per week, that means that's going to take three weeks.
Well, we always add a little bit of margin in and make it four deep work sessions and four weeks.
So, I literally calculate the date and say four weeks from now, four weeks after I make the pitch, I'm going to present.
So, that's the difference between a pitch which starts the project and a presentation which then presents it to the team.
Once you've gone through that part of the checklist, does everybody know how to do a thin slice?
And to remind you again, that's got four components.
Setting up a thin slice pitch for your team involves four things.
Number one, setting boundaries.
And we've given in the worksheets exactly what this looks like.
Now, when we talk about setting boundaries, we start with the appetite.
We don't start with an estimate of how long it will take.
We start with and say I have two deep work sessions.
I have three deep work sessions.
And we think the unit of work here is how many deep work sessions will it take.
So, we set the appetite first.
And then the question is what's the minimum usable project?
What's the thinnest slice I can take but that's actually usable?
But sometimes those slices are so thin they're just about discovering what I need to know to start a project.
You know, who's doing this?
What are the best practices?
So, your thin slice can be to find out exactly what it will take.
So, my suggestion is that everybody who's doing their first pitch ever should use an appetite of one deep work.
Why?
Because you need to have a very quick success experience.
We all want that.
And once you've done it once and you've gone through the cycle of putting together a pitch,
pitching it to your team, one deep work session, i.e. one week later, in most cases, you're presenting what you found.
Once you've done that cycle once, then you can keep pitching and doing presentations.
And this is how we get every single person in the organization to do pitches.
So, it doesn't matter where in the organization you are, you get to innovate.
You know, whether it's accounting, product design, customer service, sales, whatever it is,
every aspect of the entire business goes through a constant pitching and presentation mode.
So, the question here is we said, okay, then ask yourself as part of setting the boundaries, what's the appetite?
What's included?
What is not included?
That's really important.
So, you're saying what you're not going to do is as important as saying what you are.
That really sets expectations for the team.
The second part, setting boundaries, second part is what we call a high level or a fat marker design.
If it's a physical, you know, just drawing a little box and some squiggles and showing where the data is going to flow
or whatever the idea is, we want to put that together in a very simple way.
So, we're not solving the problem, but you're just giving a very high level idea of what it is you're going to do.
The third section is the risk and rabbit holes.
This is where we're asking,
in the question, how could I get stuck?
And if it goes well, what extra stuff could I add?
If it doesn't go so well, what things can I cut out?
So what we're doing is we're planning upfront
that we never deliver, we never get to a presentation
and say, I'm not ready.
So we're gonna get to that in a second.
So then what this fourth section is,
we put the pitch together.
Now, by the way, the pitch is not a separate worksheet.
You just take exactly the same worksheet
you just filled out for those three steps
and present it to the team.
That's what step four is.
Step four, pitching, is simply presenting
the first three steps, setting the boundaries,
the high-level design, and going through
the risks and rabbit holes.
So that's all that is, it's very, very straightforward.
Now, here's the thing, why we taught
and implemented deep work was so that you know
you have the time to do it, and you never get
to a position where it comes day to present
and you didn't have time because you know
you had deep work, so you did them.
And secondly, if you had to cut things out,
you already told the team what you might cut out.
If you added extra, you already told the team
what extra you're gonna add.
Now, here is the amazing thing.
Your reputation is directly related
to your track record of creating value.
Your reputation is directly related
to the track record of creating value.
It's also directly related to you being able
to do what you said you will do when you said you will do it.
Now, imagine if that's not just a personal thing,
but what if we do that as a culture?
Now we're creating a high-performance,
innovation team of leaders culture.
That's a culture where everybody's doing pitches
and presentations and nobody's an hour late.
What would that do to your organization if that existed?
By the way, ordinary people can do this.
This is just a matter of a little bit of practice.
So by doing this and everybody's involved,
here's the cool side benefit.
Now we all know what contribution everybody's making
in the organization.
We can much more accurately value you
and value your contribution
because we've heard your pitches
and we've watched you make presentations
when you completed them.
So this is the most powerful idea.
It's not about getting the best pitch,
thinking it out thoroughly,
going to do all the research beforehand
before you present to the team.
No one has time for that.
So the idea of a pitch, 20 minutes,
filling those three big things,
and then the fourth thing is presented to the team.
So it's very, very straightforward.
And the idea of this is as we cycle this a few times,
we all get into the habit.
In our organization,
everybody must do at least one pitch per month.
So that gives you time
to really get on those bigger projects.
So I'd like to caution you and say,
never do projects that are too long.
Six weeks should be the maximum amount of time
you do any project.
That's actually a very substantive project
and probably you should be breaking that up
to even thinner slices.
So we're constantly taking thin slices
because thin slices has a very high learning curve
because now we're learning,
this is what the business needs.
Oh, I thought the project would require that,
but now that I've done this thin slice,
it's now obvious what the next thin slice should be.
And by putting ourselves on those sequence of thin slices,
we bring huge value and we build an incredible reputation
as somebody who brings real value to the organization.
So I hope you really enjoy being that kind of innovator
and being a team of innovators.
Thanks for listening.